Of Super Speed and Wally West
by BanannaSlapz517
Summary: A collection of one-shots based on the original Kid Flash.
1. The Average American Sleepover

A/N: Greetings, and welcome to my first venture into this fandom! I just want to say that the usual rules for one-shot collections apply: Different ratings per chapter (although nothing more than T, promise), different genres, different secondary characters. If you have an idea, feel free to let me know. Reviews are love!

The inspiraton of this one was when Miss Martian told us that she and Superboy lived at Mount Justice, meaning the other three didn't. Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. Enjoy!

**Summary: In Wally's opinion, sleepovers at Mount Justice were the best.**

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"Red Tornado?"

Their hero-in-resident turned his head to look down on the five of them. "You do realize the meaning of 'dismissed for the night,' Kid Flash," he said, addressing the speaker of the group.

"Yeah, I do," Kid answered carefully. He looked down at his uniform, streaked with dirt, and then back up pleadingly. "The thing is, it's really late, and I don't want to run home in the dark, so…I was kinda wondering if I could stay the night here and go home in the morning." He put on his best me'm-just-a-little-sidekick eyes, hoping that all his companions behind him were doing the same.

Red Tornado looked around at all of them before back to Kid Flash. "Mount Justice is only supposed to be used as a sleeping location after missions in case of injury or Justice League intervention."

Kid yawned for good show did his best to look extremely tired. "I know, and I don't want to get you in trouble, but I'm so tired I'm afraid I might trip over my own feet."

He couldn't quite tell if the hero's gaze was suspicious or sympathizing- probably a mix, but in the end he answered, "Then it might be a good idea if I called the Flash and told him you were staying the night, then, due to exhaustion."

Wally's face broke into a beam before he remembered to look as tired as he was claiming. "Thank you, sir," he ended up saying, lowering his voice. A light kick to the back of his ankle-_Robin_- told him somebody thought he was laying it on a bit too thick, so he shuffled out of the way.

He listened as Kaldur and Robin explained that if Kid Flash was staying, they should stay, too, for team uniformity and all that.

That was when the real fun began.

Wally had three reasons that sleepovers were his favorite:

1. He got to spend hours with his four best friends unsupervised.

2. Snacking all night was totally normal.

3. As no one else seemed to know what a sleepover entailed (seeing as three of them weren't from around here and Robin was antisocial), Wally was leader of all the activities. Not that he resented Kaldur or Robin for "leading," he was just competitive by nature. Plus teaching the others how to have fun _rocked. _

It had taken a little while to convince everyone to ask Red Tornado for a sleepover, and then a while longer to explain the proper etiquette for such events. While the opportunities were endless, he described a few: pillow fights, Twister (it took a little while to convince them the game wasn't created by a super-villain), rocking out to music, video games, burping contests (Megan had sat out), obnoxiously large and unhealthy desserts, and prank calls (oh, the look on everyone's face when he suggested Batman. That was hilarious).

Kaldur, Megan, and Superboy had each rolled their eyes at strange human American customs, but participated anyways. Hey, it was the Justice League of _America. _They should know something about the people they protect. Robin, feeling as he was the only other representative present, started talking about responsibility and all that, but Wally shut him down with a quick, "If I was irresponsible, I would have taught them Spin the Bottle."

Yep. That shut him up.

But by the end of the night, he could tell the others loved it to. After all, they were having fun, and they had each other. Who knew that Kaldur could create really awesome light shows with his electricity sticks, made even better with Megan's tricks? Who knew Superboy was the best at imitating voices? Who knew Robin was such a great storyteller? Wally could barely believe he'd managed to come up with all he did about a circus on the spot.

Of course, the next morning he really was exhausted (they'd all gotten about two hours of sleep) and the entire team received a firm talking-to from the Red Tornado when he found them asleep on various pieces of furniture in the den.

But really, who knew how much fun it was to be on a team? These people were better than best friends. They were super-best friends. Which is at least twice as awesome. If not to the tenth. Wally screwed up his eyes as the Flash walked him out of Mount Justice, trying to remember if he'd told the others or not.

Nah, it didn't really matter. He was sure they knew.


	2. Saving Your Teammates

A/N: I want to thank everyone for the lovely reaction to the beginning of this story. I really appreciate it. Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice._

The inspiration for the one was Robin, Superboy, and Kid Flash's battle against that android in the most recent episode. When KF tackled Robin out of the way (he did it a couple times, I think), did anyone else think _oo, that must have hurt_? And as Robin and Kid Flash seem to tease each other the most, this came out. Enjoy!

**Summary: Kid Flash is starting to look out for his teammates.**

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The more time the team spent together, the more efficiently they worked. Just take the last mission. It had only taken three of them to take out Professor Ivo-whatshisname's android. Kaldur was a great leader, and his plans worked very well. In combat, they protected each other. The longer they spent together, the less any of them got hurt because of the bad guys.

Unfortunately, the longer they spent together, the better Kid Flash got at tackling them out of the way of dangerous incoming ammunition. Why the unfortunately? Well, as much as Robin, Miss Martian, and Aqualad liked not being shot or impaled, the bruises of having all 5-foot-8 of Kid Flash slamming into them at full speed got annoying after a while.

They were meeting at Mount Justice. Kaldur's suggestion they take a daytrip to the beach outside was met with a bark of sarcastic laughter from Robin.

"As fun as that sounds, I really shudder to picture me in a swimsuit right now."

Wally smirked. "Don't worry, Rob, we won't make fun of you too much."

Robin glared back at him from behind his sunglasses. "Ha. Funny. You know what else is funny? The fact that my chest is more purple than normal skin."

Everyone glanced at Wally, whose mouth twitched into a smile under their gazes but said nothing.

"And it's all your fault!" Robin continued accusingly, pointing a finger at the redhead.

Green eyes narrowed. "Wait, you get yourself beat up and it's _my _fault?"

Indignantly Robin yanked up one side of his shirt. As he said, light bruises dotted the skin. "That was when you tackled me at Gotham Academy," he snarled. He lifted up the other side. "And _this _was yesterday stopping those thugs."

The other three flinched and the darker bruises. Wally, trying not to feel guilty, replied, "Well, what was I supposed to do? Let you get shot?"

"You could pay attention to where you throw your teammates! It should tell you something that I got these when I have padding sewn into my suit!"

"Well, sor-_ry _for trying to protect you."

"If you're so fast, why don't you just move the bullets instead of me?"

"Um, hello? Do I look like Superboy?"

"You guys," Megan interrupted, looking timidly from one to the other. "I don't mean to take sides, but Wally, you did do the same thing to me yesterday, and while I appreciate the gesture- I do, I really do- maybe take a bit more care?"

Robin smirked as his friend's eyes widened in horror. "Oh no," Wally said, "I hurt you?"

Megan blushed and looked to Kaldur for help, who was wisely keeping silent, just watching the scene play out before him with interest. "I know you didn't mean it," she spoke quickly. "Just…you know…for future reference."

Wally nodded quickly. "I am so sorry," he answered earnestly. "I won't hurt you again. I promise. I'll just go for the gun next time, or take the bullet."

Robin snorted. "We wish."

"Dude!"

"Kidding, kidding. Geez. Like I would wish you dead out loud."

Wally glared. "You're pushing it."

They pushed back the day trip to the beach to next week.


	3. Fears

A/N: So this one is a little more serious than the last two. Figured we could use a mix. I apologize if anything's confusing or out of character- then again, overtired teenagers tend to act a little funny at one in the morning, so hopefully it's OK. This one was kind of inspired by the online research I did on the Flashes (wikipedia, anyone?) and how they got their powers. I mean, if I was normal one day and super the next, I'd be a little freaked out.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: When you can outrun everything, what are you afraid of?**

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_The earth was flying by under his feet. From years of practice, he could make out a few things as he streaked by, like highways, mountain ranges, and seas. However, those were just the small things. It was much easier to think in continents per second- although Pangaea forming had slowed down his count. For some reason, Uncle Barry wasn't next to him. He frowned as he noticed this, trying to remember what happened to his mentor. Then suddenly he knew. He had run away, that's what. His uncle had been calling for him to come back, but Uncle Barry couldn't catch him, nobody could catch him, stop him. How could they, they weren't fast enough to even really understand the time barrier, let alone run through it. Suddenly, he stopped. That was funny. He seemed to run out of earth to run on. _

_Then all of a sudden, something clicked in his head, and as he looked out into nothingness, he realized he really had outrun them all. He had outrun the entire planet, all 4 billion years of it. No more Earth. No more Young Justice, no more Uncle Barry, no more heroes, no more humans…nothing but blackness. No matter which way he turned, it surrounded him. Black, black everywhere, nothing but black, and he was drowning in it, suffocating in it, dying in nothingness._

_He was the fastest there ever was and ever will be. _

_He was completely alone._

_Alone. _

_Alone! _

Wally bolted upright, gasping as if he really just circled the world a trillion times. His sheets were tangled around his body and he was covered in sweat. Wally, sat there, petrified, taking in the sound of his heart pounding. His emerald eyes scanned his dark room until the settled on his window. The sky, although it was night, was still a shade of blue. The stars and the moon lit up the ground with their light. Wally craned his neck and looked further. There was the water, there was the beach, and there was a town with lights and noise and _people. _

He started taking deep breaths to try to calm his body, giving up the thought of falling back asleep and swinging in legs out of bed. Out of sheer laziness, Wally had never kept a full set of pajamas together. Therefore, when he quietly exited his room he was wandering around Mount Justice shirtless, his bare feet softly padding the ground.

After his first three steps down the hall, his knees automatically tensed to take him into super speed- a reflex that suddenly made Wally feel very sick indeed. He stopped, took some more deep breaths, and continued on his mission.

Kaldur's room was closest, so he checked on him first. Nothing elaborate, just a quick peak inside the door to make sure his teammate was still there. Then Superboy, then Megan- although he'd felt a little awkward- they were all still there, sleeping peacefully after the rough mission they'd pulled tonight.

The doors of Robin's room refused to open, even after Wally spent a full couple of minutes jiggling them, kicking them, and pondering the consequences of trying to phase through them. He finally gave up and just leaned forward, resting his forehead against the cool steel of the door.

_Wally, this is ridiculous. Nothing happened to your teammates. They're perfectly fine. You're perfectly fine. It was just a stupid nightmare. What are you, four? No need to panic. You're not alone. Everything's-_

Wally yelped as the door he was leaning on gave way suddenly, sending him toppling forward. He hit the floor with an _oof, _only vaguely listening as a voice called, "Intruders are not- Wally? Was that you trying to break into my room?"

Pushing himself back up, he opened his mouth to reply, when someone else beat him to it. "It's not just you, Robin, he's been checking in on everyone."

Wally whirled around, so he could face both of them at the same time. "Megan!" he exclaimed. "I didn't…I…"

Robin, wearing blue-and-white striped pajamas and sunglasses, stepped forward into the hall with them, closing the door as he went. "What do you mean? What's going on?"

This was not the way things were supposed to turn out. "Wait," Wally protested to Megan, "I thought you were asleep."

She gave a small grimace and shook her head. "Your screams woke me up."

"I was screaming?"

"In your mind."

"GUYS!" Robin interrupted, looking cross at being woken at unreasonable hours of the morning and being left out of the conversation. "What the heck is going on? Wally, what's the problem?"

Wally bit his lip guiltily, looking from one teammate to another. "Well, um, it's nothing. Really. Just a nightmare and I wanted to stretch my legs."

Watching Robin and Megan's faces was like watching two ends of a spectrum. Robin, if anything, looked even more annoyed, with Megan's face broke into one of sympathy. "Oh, it must have been awful!" she cried, stepping forward to try to meet Wally's eyes. "I know I'm not supposed to read your mind, and I'm sorry. But this…it was so strong…like you were in terrible pain. I could hear you screaming in your mind. I wasn't sure if I had imagined it or not, but then you came in to my room."

"Creep," Robin muttered.

"Dude!"

"It wasn't like that," Megan answered, defending him honestly. She turned back to Wally. "You just looked worried, and I wondered what was wrong. That's all."

Wally shot Robin another look and let out a breath. "Thanks, Meg. You're the best."

She smiled back at him. "You're welcome. It's just…may I ask you something?"

He shrugged. "Shoot."

"Your dream…was it about us? Is that why you wanted to make sure we were alright?"

The fact that Robin hadn't moved yet told Wally he'd been waiting for this information too. He hesitated, wondering how to describe it. "It was more of the lack of you that freaked me out."

By their two blank stares –well, one blank stare and one pair of emotionless sunglasses- Wally could tell he'd totally lost them. "I mean," he added quickly, trying to amend the situation, "It's not like that could ever even happen, really, I mean, to run through time I'd have to be faster than Flash, and that's impossible. I mean, nobody's faster than he is. For me to be, that'd be crazy, completely crazy, I'm not that good, I know I have superpowers and all, but so do you guys, and we're together, that's what a team is, so we'll never be- I mean, I'm not…alone…"

Megan still looked confused, but Robin just sighed and put a hand on the redhead's shoulder. "Look," he said, "Wally, you can't even outrun your mouth, so there's no way you'd ever be able to outrun Flash. Ever. You can't even phase through walls like he can. You're _fifteen. _So stop freaking out about the future and go get some sleep. You'll need to be well rested for those team building drills we're supposed to be doing tomorrow."

Wally nodded. He couldn't make the feeling disappear, but at least he could push it to the back of his mind until he fell asleep again. "Thanks, you guys," he answered hoarsely. He cleared his throat before talking again. "I, um, well, sorry to wake you guys up. See you in the morning."

He turned away before they could notice that his cheeks were burning. _That _had been embarrassing. Geez, needing to be comforted from a nightmare like a little kid. If Robin mentioned that to the others, he was in for it.

Behind him, Megan whispered to Robin, "I still don't understand. Wally's afraid of being alone? He's such a people person! No matter where he went, he'd have friends instantly. And it's not like he could ever get stuck anywhere."

Robin rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "Well, I'm no Batman, but if I had to guess, I'd say Wally's afraid of himself."

"What?"

"Think about it," Robin said. "Do you remember what Black Canary said in training a couple of days ago? Wally's been beating his own records left and right. His powers are only getting bigger, and he doesn't understand them. He's just afraid that one of these days he's going to run himself into oblivion and not be able to find the way back."

Megan thought about it for a second before nodding and beaming at the boy wonder. "You're so smart, Robin. I'm so glad you're on this team."

Eventually, the entire team was back asleep.


	4. It's Harder Than It Looks

A/N: Hey, guys. I was going to post something longer, but when I wrote this one I thought you guys should see it right away. It was that awesome. ;) Hope you love it as much as I did!

Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice

**Summary: Wally is trying to think like Robin.**

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"Kid Flash?"

The redhead looked up. "Oh, hey, Superboy. I told you, when I'm in civvies, call my Wally."

"What are you doing here? Are you _writing?_"

Wally looked up to the ceiling and muttered, as though it could give him answers. "Why does everyone sound so surprised?"

"You're just…sitting still," said Superboy, who looked like he was examining Wally with X-ray vision just to make sure he wasn't a fake.

"I'm trying to think like Robin," the other boy admitted, holding his head with one hand and repeatedly tapping the table with a pencil in the other. Beneath the table, one of his knees bounced up and down.

"And how's that working for you?" asked Superboy skeptically.

Wally sighed. "It's not." He pushed his head deeper into his hand, smushing that cheek and effectively look ridiculous. "The conclusion of this experiment is that A, Robin is a freak, and B, I'm not an English person. Bring on the chem and physics."

Superboy had stopped listening after the first two words for a number of reasons. The primary one was that Wally always spoke too fast about long and complicated things and he didn't really know anything of or cared about at all. All strong supporting factor was the fact that he knew he could get away with it. Instead, he looked down at Wally's paper, which had two words.

_Enthusiastic. _

_Exthusiastic. _

"What are you doing?" Superboy repeated, completely perplexed.

"I told you. Trying to be like Robin and come up with new words. The opposite of –en words is usually –ex, as –en means in and –ex means out, like endothermic and exothermic. You know, as in chemical reactions. Still haven't figured out what exthusiastic means, though."

Superboy employed one of his newest favorite mannerisms, the eye roll. "Kid, you might what to keep this to yourself until you do."

Wally ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so, too."


	5. The Great Race Begins

A/N: Hey, guys! Thanks for all the reviews! Although this is supposedly a book of one-shots, this one might be a two-parter, so stay tuned for a "sequel." In my personal opinion, this isn't my best work, but hopefully you still appreciate it. Warning: Aqualad in a friendly mood -aka, a little less responsible than normal.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: Wally's definetely not homesick. **

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"May I join you?"

Wally looked up to see the bright eyes of Kaldur taking in his teammates, rather than the view. "Sure," he answered, patting the ledge next to him. Kaldur sat down and turned his eyes to the ground below them.

Wally wasn't sure how Aqualad had found him up here. He was almost positive you couldn't see his position from any of the windows on Mount Justice. Then he remembered- it was Mount Justice. If nothing else, there were bound to be sensors. Kaldur must have gotten up the same way he had too, by climbing the rocks above the "back door" until you came to a tiny little goat-path, and then walking along it until you got to this perfect ledge, wide and sturdy, where you could see the land and the water. The two sat with their legs dangling over the side of the mountain. No, Wally didn't quite have a plan as to how to stop himself if he fell, but he was Kid Flash. He'd think of something.

"It's beautiful," Kaldur said next to him. "We are lucky to have such a location as our base."

Wally nodded slowly next to him. "Yeah," he said, "I can still barely believe it." He looked down, kicking his feet against the hard stone. "Where I come from, we don't have these."

"You mean mountains?" Kaldur asked.

The younger boy smiled wistfully. "It was flat," he answered. "You'd go out into the countryside, and there'd be nothing but crops and straight highways for miles. You wouldn't need one of these mountains to see everything. You could just go out there and run, really run, and nothing would be in your way."

The corner of Kaldur's mouth turned upwards. "So, in other words, you miss the middle of nowhere?"

Wally stared at his companion, surprised for a second, before he laughed, threw back his head and laughed. "You said it," he agreed. He watched his companion flash a smile and then duck his head at the laughter, as if it was praise. "I know there are underwater mountain ranges and stuff, but what about you. Is your ocean floor flat?"

He shook his head. "No, my friend. No steep inclines and drop-offs, but far from flat." The darker boy frowned a bit, visualizing the comparison. "Although I doubt we've ever faced the same problem. You don't need a surface to swim."

Wally nodded his agreement, lost in his own thoughts. "You think Aquaman's swimming is faster than Flash running?"

A grin reappeared on Kaldur's face. "Did you really just ask that?" he asked slyly, glancing at his companion from the corner of his eye.

Wally tried to make sure his answering smile didn't turn into a smirk. He wasn't stupid. He would wait until he was off the side of the mountain before ticking of his friend. "I know," he replied, "What was I thinking?" He jumped to his feet, the other boy right behind him. "The Flash. Obviously. He's that fastest man alive."

"Want to bet?"

In the blink of the eye, Wally had disappeared, leaving nothing but a gust of air in his place. Kaldur's grin widened as he trotted down the path back above the back door.

Wally grinned at him from down no safe ground. "What'cha waiting for, slowpoke?"

Kaldur swung himself down the rocks, rushing a little more than was wise to catch his companion. Wally was kind enough to wait for him at the bottom. "When and where, fish-boy?" he announced, watching as Kaldur landed on the ground and started walking briskly towards the opposite side of the platform from the door.

If ever a mischievous grin crossed Aqualad's face, it was now as he looked back towards Wally and promptly launched himself over the side of the mountain. Wally swore and sped over to the edge to look down, watching as Kaldur landed a perfect swan dive in the water, and popped his head back above the surface to shout something back up. "What are you waiting for, Flash Boy?"

Although few and far between, Kaldur really rocked these moments.

Wally sped back into Mount Justice, laughing as he blazed past Megan and Superboy by the TV and Robin, training below. This was going to be a great race.


	6. And Ends With a Splash

A/N: Hey, guys! Thanks for all the nice comments! Alright, I left this chapter a little open to interpretation as to who won the "race." As it might never been officially known, we'll just have to guess at the truth. ) Enjoy! Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: Wally grew up in the Midwest- oceans were never his strong point. **

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"Whatever, I was totally winning."

"Perhaps it would be better to judge this at a later time."

Superboy's ears picked up at the sound of two teammates chatting while they were scanned at the door. He frowned. Kid Flash had buzzed out of here an hour or so ago, but he hadn't seen Aqualad leave after his private training for the day.

He could hear Robin saying, "Sheesh, what happened to you," as the two presumably passed him in the main hall, and was consequently hit by Black Canary as a result, probably with the lesson being "don't get distracted." He stood up, left Megan watching her opera of soap, and met the two as they stumbled into the kitchen.

The two were both in uniform. Aqualad was sitting calmly at the table, while Kid Flash bustled around shoving food into the microwave. As Superboy saw the second figure, he did a double take.

"Why are you soaking wet?"

Both of them turned towards him. Kid frowned and immediately went back to watching the microwave impatiently. Aqualad appeared to fighting down a smug smile. "We were having a race. I was under the surface and he was supposed to be overtop."

Superboy threw a sharp glance at the redhead. "So you _can_ run on water."

Kid Flash sniffed. "Of course."

Aqualad's eyes sparkled. "Anyways, we were a few miles out, when-"

"STOP." Kid interrupted. He pointed a finger accusingly. "You're going to get it wrong. Let me tell the story." He turned to his audience. "The moral of the story, Supey, is that when you're running on water in a race, to not stop to talk to your opponent."

Superboy stared at KF for a few seconds. Then he started to snigger. "You-you-"

"It wasn't one of my brightest moves, okay?" Wally defended. He had that look on his face that Superboy knew meant that Kid Flash's ears were turning red. Picturing that just made him laugh harder.

Aqualad's mouth twitched, as if he was trying not to laugh as well. "I believe the moral you should take from this is that you shouldn't get overconfident and insult a superior opponent."

Kid Flash scowled, glared as he pulled his food- a square of lasagna- out of the microwave. "I wouldn't have stopped if my so-called opponent hadn't been so far behind."

"In your dreams," Aqualad muttered under his breath, shooting a friendly look at Superboy, sending him into snickers again. "Anyways," he continued, louder, "Kid then fell beneath the surface and couldn't get back up again, do I had to help him swim back."

The boy renewed his glare. "You try being human and swimming a dozen leagues!"

"Do you even know what a league is?"

Kid squirmed from the invisible weight of the question. "Of course. It's a long, um, nautical distance."

Aqualad laughed, and Kid flushed again. "That's not fair!" he called. "You're embellishing the story!"

A voice floated over their heads from the doorway. "Wait. Let's get this straight. Who's accusing who of embellishing?"

Kid Flash whirled around. "Robin!"

The boy wonder smirked. "Again, what happened to you? You look like you fell into the middle of the ocean!"

The next thing Robin knew, he had a face-full of Kid's lasagna and while said teammate had vanished from the kitchen. He frowned at the other two boys. "What'd I say?"


	7. Illogical Hair

A/N: Hey, guys. Good episode the other day? I think so. I'll have another one or two out this week about school, hopefully. Alright, back to this one-shot. I don't mean any offense to blonde-haired people, I promise. I love you guys. I'm also sorry if this turns out to be a little AU. I took a few creative liberties about Wally's past. Then again, I'm pretty sure DC is the king of AUness. This is what, their sixteenth one?

I do not own DC, _Young Justice, _or _The Sword in the Stone. _

**Summary: Wally's pretty sure King Arthur wasn't an archer, but hey. **

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Wally had never liked blondes.

It all started back in 7th grade. His first girlfriend. Her name was Tiffany. She was super hot, with dark blond hair, blue eyes, and a great tan. She was also a witch with a capitol B.

They'd gone out for a whole month back in middle school. They'd both been some of the coolest people in school, back then. In 7th grade, just before Kid Flash had appeared, Wally (who'd always been athletic, even before he'd gotten his powers) had been running back on the football team, and everyone knew it. After an agreement with Uncle Barry, Wally had tragically "broken his ankle" in the middle of the season, a week into his relationship with Tiffany.

She had been delighted. Now everyone wanted to talk to her about poor, poor Wally, and she could basically advertise the fact that she had an athletic boyfriend. And advertise she did. She needed to be the center of attention everywhere she went, as if she wasn't then she would throw a fit. Wally swore she was bipolar, being whiny and furious with him one minute and completely in love with him the next. He only put up with her for so long because, even though she would coddle him in public, it usually came with a heapful of baked goods.

As the novelty of his crutches wore off, she started to be less and less nice to him (and the world in general, actually). She complained about everything, insulted his every move, made ridiculous demands, and started calling him Wallace when she was mad. _Wallace, look at me. Tell me how much prettier I am than all those girls. Wallace, pay attention! Courtney's such a slut! All you do is sit around all day, Wallace West. I am so sick of you. _

Finally he snapped at her that, no, he couldn't go back to the football team right now because his ankle was still "broken" and he really didn't have plans at all to rejoin the team. They broke up. That was the end of Wally's popularity and his appreciation of long, blond hair.

Artemis's hair was both unnecessarily long and obnoxiously blond.

The worst thing was, he hadn't even hit on her yet, he hadn't even _said a word to her yet_- when she started making fun of him. One would think he would like another teammate who could appreciate Baywatch references. But no, out of all the normal teammates he could get, they had to be joined by _her. _

Why couldn't they have gotten Speedy or Red Arrow or whatever he was called these days?

Other than the initial "Wall-man," she had heard, they hadn't exchanged a word to each other about secret identities. So, as he had informed Robin as he had sat down next to him, she needed a nickname.

"Uh-huh," Robin noted, not really paying attention as he was typing away at his laptop. Wally knew that, but he needed to talk to _somebody. _Megan loved having another girl on the team, and Kaldur was too fair to not like any hero. Superboy didn't like her- but then again, he didn't like most people, and he wasn't really one for talking anyways. So here he was, talking to Robin.

He'd debated several inwardly already, already turning down Short Blond And Ugly, as well as Green Monster. Hey, just because he'd grudgingly welcomed her to the team doesn't mean he had to be nice to her. There were fights in between members of the Justice League. Just as long as it didn't get in the way of the job, it was fine.

"How about Wart?" Wally said aloud, glancing at Robin, who wrinkled his nose.

"Wart?" Robin echoed. "Where'd that come from?"

"Well, it kind of rhymes with Art, which is an abbreviation of her name."

Robin looked up at him in shock. He physically dropped his laptop and stared, mouth gaping open like a fish, which creeped Wally out a lot.

"Rob? You okay?"

"WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH WALLY!"

"Robin. Seriously. What gives?"

There was a crash as Superboy burst open the door, quickly followed by Aqualad and Miss Martian, although they were out of uniform. Superboy must have heard the noise and burst in, assuming the worst. Artemis wasn't here, as she didn't seem to understand that Mount Justice was their hangout spot yet. Wally wasn't sure what she would do once she did, either. Star City was on the other side of the country, and she had no means of daily transportation that was anywhere near fast enough. "AH!" Robin screamed, pointing to him as the others can in. "HE JUST MADE A REFERENCE TO LITERATURE! THAT CAN'T BE WALLY!"

Wally raised his hands in the air. "It's just a figure of speech, you three. I'm not an imposter, I swear. Ask me something that only I would know."

Superboy glared at him suspiciously. "What's the first thing you promised me?"

Wally's face broke into a grin as he remembered. "That we could show you the moon."

Superboy relaxed visibly, now staring at the flabbergasted, still screaming Robin. Kaldur quickly asked, "What is the problem?"

"WALLY JUST QUOTED T.H. WHITE'S _THE SWORD IN THE STONE!"_

Everyone looked at Wally, who flushed under all of their gazes. "Darn it," he mumbled, "I was hoping you wouldn't catch that."

This seemed to calm Robin a bit, who had gone a little red in the face. "Why did you know that?" he accused, narrowing his eyes under his sunglasses. In the doorway, the other three sighed at the false alarm but stayed to witness the outcome of the scene. "You don't read," Robin continued.

Wally rolled his eyes. "Just because reading's not my favorite pastime, Robin, doesn't mean I can't. Besides, my aunt's a journalist. She loves that English stuff. Makes me read all the time."

Megan looked interested. "What was the quote that alarmed Robin so much?"

"I was just trying to come up with a nickname for Artemis," Wally explained quickly, before Robin could come in and tell everyone the wrong thing. "Do you guys know the legend of Kind Arthur?"

Kaldur and Megan shook their head, but Superboy answered, "The noble King of Camelot, leader of the knights of the round table, bringing a golden age to his people?"

Wally nodded, an idea forming quickly in his mind. "Yeah, him. He supposedly lived, like fifteen hundred years ago and was the best king the world has ever seen. This guy, T.H. White, wrote a book about the legend. I was thinking about giving Artemis the same nickname as King Arthur had. Wart."

Robin rolled his eyes as the other three had a similar initial reaction to his. "Wart?"

"Yeah. Wart, kinda rhymes with Art, which is an abbreviation of both of their names."

Kaldur nodded slowly. "You wish to nick-name her after a great leader? In all honesty, I didn't expect something like this from you, Wally. I thought it would take longer for you to accept her, but you seemed to have moved past petty disagreements. I'm impressed. Wart, it is."

As soon as the other three left the room Wally exchanged a glance with Robin and burst into laughter.

_Kid Flash, 1, Wart, 0. _


	8. Sports or Super Heroes

A/N: Hey, guys. Have I ever mentioned how much I love my reviewers? Well, then, now ya know. Here's the one about school I promised. It's Wally's thought process during the whole first day of sophomore year. Hope you enjoy!

Aka, this is high school, so it is a little more on the K+/T side of things. Disclaimer: I don't own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: You know school is driving you crazy when you start referring to your other self in third person. **

**

* * *

**

Sometimes being Kid Flash really sucked. Today, however, was not one of those times.

"Now, class, tests will be 35% of your grade…"

Wally inwardly groaned. Why in the world would he need to take geography with a bunch of other smart kids? Why couldn't he be in the generic U.S history class that was supposedly insultingly easy? Oh, right, because Uncle Barry had thought that it would be good for him to know all the places he ran through on a daily basis. Seriously, he _ran through all these states on a daily basis. _Who cares about the capitol of New York? Why the hell isn't it New York City? He'd been there. It's great. Who cares? New York was hundreds of miles from Central City. _Who really cares?_

The overachievers. That's who.

What he wouldn't give to be Kid Flash right now.

Kid Flash would be playing out on the beach with his best friends, who just so happened to be superheroes that didn't have to deal with school (until September, at least, _Robin_). Kid Flash could be out patrolling the city, stopping crimes or stuff like that. Heck, he could be patrolling any city in the country. If he was really lucky, Kid Flash would be touring the Justice League's watchtower. If he were really unlucky, he would be kidnapped. Flash or Young Justice would have to rescue him. Or a combination of both.

But whatever the circumstances, Kid Flash would not be slowly dying of boredom in a public high school.

Is it weird that he referred to his other self in third person?

_Wow. I can't believe I just thought that. I must be nuts. _

Gym was worse. At least it was his last year. His last year of pretending to be un-athletic. His last year of not really being able to participate in anything. Maybe, on the last day, he could go KF on all the jerks in his class and pound them into the dust. Kid Flash could totally kick their butts. Wipe the floor with their butts. Kick their butts to Kingdom Come.

It took a lot to remind himself that Wally West was not Kid Flash.

The only good part of the day was lunch. Not the food, of course, the food was disgusting. Even if it had looked even remotely edible, (he'd eaten it, anyways) he couldn't get an actual decent amount, because a serving size for a normal human and a serving size for Kid Flash were completely different. Which meant he was always. Hungry.

No, the good part about lunch was talking with the other guys. He usually ended up sitting with a load of other not-popular-but-not-losers-either-guys, not the nerds, not great at any sports, just mediocre in just about everything. He didn't have any particularly close friends, but it was great all the same. They knew exactly how he was feeling: school sucked.

They talked about how awful just about every single class and teacher was, complained about the food, the bipolar air conditioning, and how there were no cute new girls this year. After they'd exhausted all of those topics, they moved on to sports and superheroes, which are almost like sports. Each major city had one, some had two. You debated strengths and weaknesses, wins and losses, watched them on TV. To the teenagers, who couldn't remember a world without them, superheroes were a given.

And as this was Central City, the Flash was totally the best team.

"Dude! Did you hear? Kid Flash was up fighting in Gotham City a couple days ago."

"Gotham? No way."

"Yeah, way, I heard it too."

"What was he doing up there?"

"Probably something interesting. Nothing exciting ever happens around here."

"Batman's in Gotham, right? Why wasn't he there?"

"Like, he wasn't even fighting. It was Kid Flash and Robin."

"Robin?"

"You know, Batman's sidekick."

"What does Batman even do? He doesn't even have any powers."

"He's just a jacked-up cop. Flash could totally take him."

"But if Kid Flash and Robin are friends-"

"Hold up. What?"

"Well, why else would Kid Flash be in Gotham? He was probably hanging out with Robin or teaming up or something."

"BS, man. Kid Flash is totally Central City's. He'd never work with anybody but the Flash."

"Dude, they're probably friends. He's, like, our age. He's gotta have friends."

"Dude. Since when do superheroes have time to hang out and stuff?"

"They can't work all the time, stupid."

"Who are you calling stupid? I'm not the one who failed bio last year."

"68 is not a fail, dumbass. It's a D."

At this point the conversation drifted back into complaining about grades, which wasn't nearly as interesting. Wally loved these conversations. He died laughing on the inside every time.

Still, the rest of the school day was a total waste of time. He couldn't even try to pay attention in any of his classes, because he kept picturing his friends having a good old time at the beach. They'd told him to come up as soon as possible, but with his schedule, and homework, and the time change, he didn't get to Happy Harbor until it was dark.

And he couldn't even complain to anyone because three of them had never been to school and Robin never took him seriously and- wait, _what did they mean, new girl? Who the eff was she?_


	9. Ouch

A/N: Hello, everyone. Do you remember how in the begininng of this little thing, I promised all sorts of genres and ratings and types of one-shots? Well, I'm going to fufill that with this one. Translation: I was running out of ideas (there's really only so much you can accurately write based on six episodes).

So, I introduce to you my longest one so far. Rated T, friendship/drama. Warning: AU of epic porportions.

I might leave this where it stands, or I might continue it, I'm not sure. Please review to tell me what you think of this chapter and what I should do next! Please, all opinions are welcome, whether I should just stick with canon or if this type of thing is acceptable.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: After avoiding doctors for years, it figures something like this would happen to him. **

* * *

"Please! He's my friend! If that specialist doctor doesn't see him right now he'll die!"

The nurse or secretary or whatever she was looked sympathetically at the young boy. "Dr. Shayfer is extremely busy at the moment. Our other ER doctors are just as capable-"

"No! You don't understand! He's only had a quick examination, and the gunshot wound is a lot more complicated than it seems, that's why we brought him here!" Robin shouted at her, dressed hastily in civilian clothes. The "quick examination" had been while he was disposing of his friend's uniform. It was quite a grisly wound.

These people didn't understand how close it is to being fatal.

The woman, as nice as she was trying to be, had the barest hint of annoyance in her voice now. "And what would you know about gunshot wounds, sir? You look a little young to have a medical degree. I assure you, he is being taken care of-"

"Do you know who I am?" Robin screamed.

"Sir, please, there are other patients-"

Kaldur's mouth dropped a little as Robin swiped the sunglasses off his face to make eye contact with the woman. He couldn't see Robin's face, as Kaldur was behind Robin as he spoke to the nurse, but still…

"I'm Dick Grayson," Robin – Dick – spat at her. "Bruce Wayne's ward. And if you don't get your specialty doctor to see my friend immediately, Wayne industries is going to sue every penny of this place. And you. And if he dies…"

The names Robin (thinking of him as Robin was much easier) was spitting out seemed familiar, as if he should know them. Had he studied them in the League's guides to all heroes and villains? Maybe. They were tantalizingly familiar…

The woman paled. Whatever Robin had said, the threat seemed to have worked. She started bustling around, using her phone and communication unit. Kaldur looked to the floor as Robin turned around, almost feeling as if he was invading privacy when Robin turned around, eyes bare.

…oh. He remembered, Wayne Industries. The other company competing with LutherCorp, owned by Lex Luthor, for the title of largest company in the world. That's why he'd heard of it- it was probably on Lex Luthor's page of the supervillian database. Bruce Wayne, one of the richest people in the world, owned it.

Wait. Did that make Robin a billionaire's son?

* * *

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It took a tremendous amount of effort for him to open his eyes, but he did. The passages from his eyes to his brain felt like they were waterlogged, as it took an extremely large amount of time for any images to process. A white bed. White bandages. White IV sticking out of his arm…or was it gray, he couldn't tell. A white woman in a white uniform…white room…red blood, in a small bad hanging next to his bed…

It felt like forever until he could open his mouth, a move that drained him completely. Still, his curiosity was stronger. He had to find out.

"Where…" he croaked, and fell silent again, not being able to get anything else out. However, the woman seemed to hear him and turned. Her eyes widened at the sight of his.

"Oh my goodness, you're awake," she cried, rushing over. The assault of new sounds was too much for his brain. It started to shut down. However, he was able to get one thought out before he fell asleep again.

_Hospital._

_

* * *

_

"The doctor's say he's getting better. He'll be fine. I don't see why you and your friends have to keep up this ridiculous bedside vigil."

"I told you, Bruce, I'm not leaving until Conner shows up, and that's in another two hours. Somebody's got to stay with him."

"He's asleep for Pete's sake, Dick. There's nothing you can do for him."

"I'm going to stay."

There was a pause. "Fine. I'm going to be back in two hours. And then we're leaving, Conner or not."

"Bruce, I know you're not happy with me, but please don't take this out on anyone else. I mean, if there's ever a choice between my secret identity and someone's life…there isn't a choice. You understand. I know you do."

"Goodbye, Dick."

A door must have opened, for suddenly other sounds were leaking into the room, along with heavy footsteps, before the sounds stopped, signifying the door closing.

Where was he again? What was he doing here?

_Hospital. _

His eyes opened rather easily this time. He blinked a few times, to make sure his eyelids still worked, before looking around. His last awakening seemed more like a dream than a memory, but this was the same place, all right. Not much had changed. He was still on an IV, but the bag of blood for what must have been a transfusion was gone…

He frowned. Instead of a nurse in the corner, bending over some monitor, there was somebody else. The man- no, boy, was sitting down in one of the chairs that lined the wall. He was folded over, with his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands. He seemed to be wearing a suit of some kind, although who would wear something that formal to a hospital, Wally didn't know. His only feature that Wally could see was a top of disheveled, straight black hair.

He was at the same hospital, wasn't he?

Oh no…was he still Wally West? What if something had happened and he'd body-swapped with somebody else? Sure, it was crazy, but then again, he was the fastest boy on earth. Or, had been. Hopefully he still was. He glanced down at his hands. Nope, they were still pale with a few freckles on them.

There was only one way to get to the bottom of this. No use procrastinating.

"Hey, you!"

The boy jerked up abruptly as if he had been shocked. Wally continued, "Do I know you? What are you doing here?" Hey, if he had been body-swapped, he could always feign amnesia.

The boy stared at him for a couple seconds before answering. He was pale and skinny and looked overtired. His blue eyes were slightly red, as if he had been crying. Had he been crying? For Wally? Geez, if he hadn't been body swapped, what had happened?

Another thought stuck him: I haven't been caught, have I? This kid looks like he could buy an entire city-

His brain froze in his tracks. Stupid, _stupid _Wally. Here he was. At a hospital. Him, not-quite-human Wally, at a _hospital. _They'd obviously been working with his blood and poking plenty of needles. He hadn't so much as a checkup ever since he was dumped with those chemicals all those years ago. Stupid, _stupid…_

"I'm Richard Grayson," the boy said quietly, interrupting him. "But you can call me Dick. I'm…well, I'm here to make sure you're alright."

Wally wrinkled his nose. "Do I know you?"

The boy blinked, opened his mouth, shut it again, and blinked some more. Eventually, he ignored the question and answered, "You're getting better, but you're still not supposed to be up yet. The doctor said not to expect you awake until next week. I'm not sure this is healthy."

Wally shrugged. He didn't feel hurt. "Yeah, well, I'm guess I'm quick. What happened that was so bad?"

Dick's face, which had been merely worried before, now darkened into a scowl. "I don't know how it was allowed to happen. I guess you tangled with some wrong people and before people could get there to help, they vanished, leaving you for dead on the floor."

Wally could now tell they were deliberately dancing around each other. He frowned, feeling as if he should recognize the name, or the face, but nothing was adding up in his head. "Look, you seem like a smart kid, and I don't think you could hurt me, so I want to be straight with you. I'm-"

The doctor burst in the door, followed by a swarm of other people. Wally felt his jaw drop and stared incredulously at the boy. "You hit the help button while I was distracted! You sly dog!"

"-sedation." Finished a doctor.

Wally whipped his head around, trying to locate the proper adult to complain with. He squirmed as a few of them reached for his arm. "What? No! I just woke up! This is crap! I want my- ow! No! I told you not to do that! I told you…" darn it. Too late. He'd had sedatives before, could recognize the effects. "No…" he turned his head back to the boy. "We…talk…don't go…"

The last thing he saw before he fell back asleep was a tear slipping down the boy's cheek.

* * *

Dick called Kaldur, asked him to come over. Wally was back to sleeping on his hospital bed, although now he had a frown on his face.

"The doctors said it was a good thing he didn't squirm too much, he could have paralyzed himself from the waist down. I guess they're not all completely gone then, not yet. Good. That might have saved his life."

The Atlantean said nothing, watching the boy pace back and forth in front of him.

"Isn't it weird that he didn't recognize me? At all? I thought…I was sure…but…he asked me, straight up, 'Do I know you?' Twice! He asked if he knew me! Like we haven't been doing missions together for months. Like we haven't been friends for years."

Kaldur sighed, gently admitting, "Wally's been really unwell and was probably in a lot of pain. Unless you walked in as Robin and took off the mask in front of him there, it might be a little while for him to connect the dots. He was never one for self-prompted higher thinking."

Dick looked away. "I know, I know. Batman said he was super-smart because his thoughts moved at super speed, like the rest of him. Now…" his blue eyes wandered over to Wally on the bed and flashed away again.

The older boy nodded. "Robin, I do admit, things are going to be a lot different now."

Dick sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I know, I know, I know, I know. Well, when he wakes up, tell him to take a visit to Gotham, okay? I don't know how long Batman's gonna keep me."

Kaldur nodded again, staring moodily at the wounded member of their team. "I fear Young Justice will not be going out on any missions for a while."

Robin followed his gaze, ordering himself not to cry. Robin doesn't cry. "Well…this is goodbye then. I'll stay in touch. And I'll be back here the second you need me, Batman or no. Promise to call if you need help?"

His friend gave a small smile. "I swear."

* * *

When he woke up again, the nurse was back, the boy was gone, and he felt like shit.

_Dang it, Wally, don't swear. If Kid Flash swore in public, how would that look? Bad. So don't swear._

A bolt of pain shot through his head, as if his mind was protesting actually being used. _Ah, screw it. Shit shit shit shit shit ffuuck…_

The pain was so great this time that Wally groaned and mentally promised that he would never, ever swear again if only he could go back to sleep _right now _and not wake up until his head didn't feel like it was being infested with a thunderstorm.

The noise alerted the nurse, who turned her attention to Wally with a smile on her face. "Oh good, you're up again!"

_Oh, please, go away. _"My head hurts," Wally moaned aloud. "Can…"

The nurse nodded. "No problem, sweetheart. The doctor has cleared you for any painkillers you need. Now, I'm going to give you a shot in the arm, and after words, do you think you could down a glass of water for me?"

10 minutes later, Wally felt much better, to the point of actually of actually being able to communicate with the nurse outside of grunts and groans. He was currently listening in shock as the nurse recounted his recent past to him.

"I was _shot?_"

The nurse nodded. "It's really no surprise you don't remember. You'd lost a lot of blood even by the time you came into the hospital. You're lucky to have survived, young man. Three gunshot wounds to the chest are usually fatal."

Wally laughed hoarsely. "Fatal. Ha. That's…wow."

"In fact, it probably would have been, if you haven't been treated by one of the best doctors in the country. He stopped by for an operation of a customer, and was planning to leave after words to go back to his research lab, but luckily, he was stopped. You're lucky you have such influential friends."

Wally had only been vaguely listening, focusing instead on examining his body more to make sure everything was in working order. He only just caught the last words in time for them to register in his brain that they didn't make sense. "Wait…" he said. "What influential friends?

The woman laughed, as if he was being ridiculous. "Dick Grayson, dear," she chuckled. "He came in here and threw a fit! I guess that when you're being raised by the richest man in the world, there isn't much you don't get."

Wally raised his eyebrows. "Him? He was in here earlier!"

The nurse nodded. "Yes. He did look really upset when Bruce Wayne ordered him out of the hospital. I'm sure you'll be contact soon, however. Your family should be here soon, in case you were wondering. They were contacted as you started to wake up."

Wally gasped. Bruce _Wayne?_ Like, one of the richest people in the country? That kid had been related to _him? _"And they _left?"_

"Excuse me?"

He remembered that nurses couldn't read his thoughts. Good thing, too, as he had plenty to hide. "Um…he had to leave? Richard, I mean?"

The woman nodded again, but just as she opened her mouth, the door opened behind her. Wally's face broke into a smile as he recognized the tall figure stepping in the room. He smiled tiredly back and introduced himself to the nurse. "Hi, I'm Barry Allen, I'm Wally's uncle. His parents were both tied up at the moment, so I came 'round. How's he doing?"

Wally listened as the nurse confirmed that he was indeed Wally's uncle and gave him the diagnosis. Basically, it was a very long and boring medical speech that made Wally happier than ever that he would be guaranteed a career in law enforcement rather than in the medical field.

"Thank you," Uncle Barry said at last, looking up from the papers that the nurse had given him. "Now, if you don't mind, do you think I could talk with Wally on his own for a little bit? I'm sure this whole experience has been very traumatic for him and I want to make sure he's dealing with it all right."

Eventually, the nurse left them alone, leaving both of the males free to talk about whatever they please. Not surprisingly, Wally burst out with a stream of comments first.

"Hey, Uncle Barry! I'm so glad you're here! Is it just me, or are hospitals boring or what. I woke up once a little while ago, but the only guy there was named Dick Grayson. Apparently he's some rich kid who suddenly became best friends with me and insisted on getting my life saved. Which was a stroke of luck for me, I think. I don't know, I can't really remember anything. What day is today? How fast do you think I'll be better? And, oh, yeah, what did you do with my blood samples is stuff?"

Barry Allen was the quietest Wally had ever seen him. He looked really tired and depressed and, well, awful in general. "Wally," he said at last, walking towards him, slowly brushing his nephew's red hair off his forehead. "Wally, Wally, Wally," he continued, repeating the name, not moving a hand except for the one stroking his head.

Wally's brain started scrambling. Oh, no. "What happened?" he demanded again, "You look like someone's died." Silence. "…oh my gosh. Who died?"

Uncle Barry shook his head. "No, nothing like that, kid." He winced as the last word came out of his mouth. "I mean, um…it's just been a very trying time. For everyone."

Wally made a sympathetic face. "Was it the Rogues again?"

His uncle shrugged. "Among other things. Besides," he continued, grinning briefly, "I didn't have my…" he trailed off, looking down to Wally's chest where the bandages lay.

Wally shifted on the bed. "It's ok, Uncle Barry. It was probably my fault, anyways. Where you there when it happened? No need to feel guilty. I'll be back out there in no time."

As his uncle again flinched at his words –he'd never been the best at masking his emotions, and Wally knew him so well he could read him like a book, anyways- Wally felt a pang of frustration run through him. "Look, what's going on?" he asked roughly. "Did somebody else get hurt too? Did some people find out my secret identity? Just tell me. Was it that Dick Grayson guy?"

Barry sighed. "No," he said softly. "Dick Grayson's a friend. Look, I'm not going to hide things from you, Wally. You'd figure it out sooner or later, anyways."

"Figure what out?" he asked warily, eying his uncle. This really didn't sound good.

The adult sighed again and looked to the floor before meeting Wally's eyes again. "When you were shot," Barry said, "the bullets were actually coated in a kind of poison. You've been in here a really long time."

Wally nodded distractedly, trying to figure out what this could mean. He must have _really _been practically dead, then, by the time he got in here, if with his speed-healing abilities he'd been in here a while. No wonder everyone seemed so worried.

"And the reason I haven't done anything with your blood samples…wait, no. The reason you have normal hospital staff treating you is…euh. Wally, I mean…somebody has died."

"What? But you said-"

"I know what I said. I'm sorry."

"Well, who? Nobody in the family, right? Nobody in Young Justice?"

"Kid Flash."

"What?"

His uncle bit his lip and grabbed Wally's hand, and for once, the teen didn't squirm away from contact. "Wally…Kid Flash died a month ago, the first day you were in the hospital."

His brain, right then and there, shut down. Something was very, very wrong. Somewhere, from a very distant corner of his mind, he could hear himself asking, "What are you saying?"

"Wally," his uncle said. "You don't have powers anymore."


	10. And Long Recoveries

A/N: I know there were many ways I could have taken this sequel (and yes, this is the sequel to the last chapter), but in the end, this is the way I wanted to go. I'm sorry if the ending upsets anyone. I have the feeling it probably could have been written better, but oh well.

By the way, everyone's reviews? Fantastic. You all are really great. So, if you actually read the author's notes, you're probably really nervous by now, so I'll just start the chapter. Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: If your metabolism changes, and your eating habits don't, then you have a problem.**

**

* * *

**

Well, at least he wasn't dead.

Highly upset, but not dead.

To tell the truth, once he'd gotten over the initial shock, it wasn't that bad. _He could be dead, he could be dead._ He'd never been one to hold on the things, anyhow. He moved on. Beside, the thought that he sacrificed his power for all other speedsters everywhere helped. He'd be an eternal hero now. Go down in the history books. As not being dead.

After discussing his options at length with Uncle Barry and the rest of the Justice League, he'd finally decided on a path that wouldn't leave him feeling completely useless. As Wally West hadn't been to Central City in months, Uncle Barry decided it would be less suspicious if he just "moved." Home Sweet Mountain, here he comes.

_Recognized: Kid Flash. Feed Zero, Three. _

"And don't you forget it," he remarked loudly as he materialized in the main hall.

"Wally?"

"Wally?"

_"Wally!"_

He grunted as he was greeted with a face-full of red hair and a great green hug. "Hey, Megan. I missed you too. Those cookies you brought me? Loved 'em." He hadn't touched them, of course, but he considered the effort.

"Kaldur!" he greeted, shaking the Atlantean's hand and patting him on the shoulder while his friend smiled at him warmly. "How are you doing? Looking good. Thanks for keeping me from boring myself to death in that hospital. Legit, there was nothing on TV. Conner!" he gave a friendly punch to the kryptonian's shoulder, although honestly he wasn't sure if he'd felt it or not. "Those letters you sent? Beautiful. Your handwriting is really improving." For a sixteen year old, he still printed like a second grader, but it was getting better.

He looked around for the last member of the team, the one he had been most anxious to see, and sighed in relief as he located him. "Robin, I can so see you. The shadows here aren't quite up to par with the ones in Gotham, I expect."

Sheepishly, the youngest hero moved into the light with the rest of them. His face was a nervous as Wally had ever seen it. "Look, dude, I wanted to visit so badly, but…you know…Batman kept on catching me sneaking out and…"

Wally crossed his arms and stared at Robin, tapping his foot. Robin looked down, ashamed. This last for a whole, say, five seconds, before Wally snorted and burst into laughter.

"Dude, your face!" Wally chuckled, clutching his sides. "Would I ever really be that mad at you? That was _priceless. _Come here." Robin seemed shocked as he was pulled into a one-armed hug. "Yeah, come on, feel the love. It won't hurt you, I promise, no matter what Batman says."

"Wally!" Robin protested eventually, pulling away. "Not funny!"

The redhead grinned around at the rest of the teammates, who seemed to be happy just to see his antics again. As silence set back in, however so did the feeling of seriousness.

"So," Conner finally said. "Why have you come back?"

Wally let his face fall. "Actually, I just wanted to collect my stuff and go. I'll be staying in Central City for a while."

"Oh."

All of their heads snapped up as Wally started laughing again. "You guys," he sniggered, "take me way too seriously. This job is going to be awesome."

"Job?"

"Job?"

"What job?"

Wally shrugged nonchalantly. "Didn't you hear? Red Tornado's moving out. I'm the new hero-in-residence."

Robin snorted. "Yeah, right. What's the real story?"

"No, I was actually being serious that time."

There was a pause in which they all looked at each other, looked at Wally, and then finally all at Robin as he smacked his face and muttered, "We're doomed."

Wally's smile widened. "You guys, this is going to be so much fun."

* * *

"Hey. Hey, Robin."

The boy wonder bolted upright in bed, groping for the batarang he always kept in arm's reach from his pillow. "Don't bother," the voice said. "It's just me."

The smaller boy squinted in the darkness, still reaching for his nightstand, except now for the sunglasses lying on top of it as well. "Wally? Now did you get into my room?"

Not the Robin could see, but his friend gave a small smile and waved a key card in the air. "Hero-in-residence, remember? I've got an all-access pass to the entire mountain."

"Oh," Robin let out, sinking back into a sitting position on his bed while placing the sunglasses lightly on his nose. "Right. I forgot." He felt the end of the bed sink a little as Wally sat down here. "Why are you here in the middle of the night?"

Wally shrugged. "I wanted to talk to you alone, and you saw the other guys. They didn't want to let me out of their sight."

Robin nodded. You couldn't blame them, really. Having Wally back was like putting back the ice cream in a sundae. The team wasn't quite the same without it. "That's fair. What's up?"

Wally paused before he said something, which immediately let Robin know that something was up, as Wally's filter from his brain to his mouth wasn't very strong even at the best of times. Finally, he just said, "Dick."

Oh. Dick.

"So, you know, then?"

"Once I was off the pain medication, it wasn't that hard to figure out."

Robin swallowed. "Are you mad?"

"Mad? No."

"I'm so sorry I didn't visit."

"It's okay. Batman didn't let you. I understand."

Slowly, Robin reached up to his sunglasses and pulled them off his face. He folded them up in his lap, fidgeting with them, not looking up, and he could tell that Wally hadn't looked in his direction yet either. "Wally, that's not…exactly…true."

His friend stiffened beside him. "What do you mean?"

"If I'd asked, I'm sure Batman would have given me the day off. I guess, I was just…scared."

"Richard…" The word was soft and concerned, the perfect tone for a friend. Not a formal Robin or a presumptuous Dick. Just Richard.

"It's my fault you lost your powers," he admitted suddenly.

"Look, don't blame yourself-"

"No, it's true. The last thing you said before you were shot was, 'Robin. That poison, I think it's made of-' and then you started listing off all these chemicals. And then you said, 'Together, it would be like a chemical inverse of those that gave me my powers.' And then I told you not to worry, because I'd disable the security system and the guards would never know we were there." Against his best attempts, he felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. "Except they knew. I don't know how, but they knew, and you got shot…"

He was so busy biting his lower lip to keep from crying that he didn't notice Wally's hand moving until it was on his shoulder. "I don't blame you. I'm fine, look at me. Everything's going to be fine. I'm sorry that I came in here in the middle of the night and got you all emotional. It's my fault."

Dick shook his head a little, and replied, "Using my secret identity was the least I could do."

Wally quickly moved his hand from Dick's shoulder to ruffle his hair. "Well, I didn't say we weren't going to have fun with this, now did I? You're one of the richest people on earth. Dude, we are _totally _going to the Super bowl this year. By the way, Batman is…?"

"Bruce. Bruce Wayne."

"Ah. So that's how he can get all his stuff. I always wondered. Anyways, night, Dick." Wally stood up and started to leave the room.

"You still have to call me Robin," he called from his bed, stopping Wally in the doorway.

Silhouetted by the light from the hallway, Wally grinned mischievously. "But, Dick…"

"_Wally." _The name was a growl. "Just because you're an injured cripple doesn't mean I'll wait for you to heal before kicking your butt."

He bit back an "In your dreams," recognizing the threat as valid, and instead replied, "You know, Robin, I never pictured you as a Dick."

"Shut up, Wally. Let me sleep."

"_Robin is a Dick…"_

He dodged the pillow haphazardly thrown his way (really, from Robin, he would have expected better) and ducked out of the room.

There was no way Robin was going to hear the last of this.

* * *

All right, so it hadn't been so bad at first, when he was stuck in the hospital and couldn't move so much anyways. But now, he was really just putting on a brave face for everyone.

He really missed being Kid Flash.

Even though now he wasn't in danger of starving to death in a week, the metabolism thing went both ways. Instead of being hungry, he now had stomachaches. _All the time. _When he mentioned this to the others, Robin had just replied, "Well, maybe you should stop stuffing your face so much."

How do people live when there's so much food everywhere around them without eating it constantly?

And now it took him forever to get anywhere. Seriously, since when had bus rides taken so long? For the first time, he considered the very real challenge of getting his driver's permit, which in the past he'd always assumed he wouldn't need. Now he'd have to pay money for gas and stuff. Granted, it probably would have been the same amount of money he would have spent on food, but now he was contributing to global warming. It was not a good feeling.

Moreover, as it's been years since he'd spent any length of time in a car, he'd just discovered what carsickness was. Great. You'd figure he, of all people, would be immune to motion sickness.

And his mile? _5 minutes and 17 whole seconds. _That was ridiculous. What was he, a snail?

The worst part, though, was the almost-constant feeling of emptiness on his head. Whenever a car went on the highway, or whenever he started to run, or whenever he considered doing something dangerous, one hand automatically reach down to pull his goggles over his eyes. Goggles that weren't there.

Now he didn't even make a difference in the world. Who cared about Wally West? He wasn't fast. He couldn't do anything special. As time went on, people started noticing him less and less. The other members of Young Justice were too busy for him. Uncle Barry didn't love him or need him any more. Who needed a slow Kid Flash? Nobody. That's who. Nobody needed him. He would be alone forever.

Alone.

_Alone. _

_Alone!_

_"Wally, wake up!"_

He blindly lunged at his attackers, kicking out with his left leg and opposite hand, but during the process he dived a little too far over the side of his bed and fell onto the floor with a thump.

"Wally! Seriously! Stop it! Wake up, you idiot!"

He rolled around on the floor and kicked some more, wildly trying to free himself of his restraints. A pair of hands tried to grab his wrists, but he wrenched away, stumbling up to his feet as gasping for air as he looked around in the dark.

_Crap. Enemies must have taken over the base! And if they're coming after me- _"What have you done to my friends!"

A figure took a step closer to him. "Wally, what are you-"

Wally jumped away and turned, sprinting as fast as he could awa-

BAM.

"Ow!" Wally exclaimed, clapping his hands to his nose. He sat down heavily, bending over as he silently screamed, overwhelmed with the bright white never-ending flash of pain. Ow. Ow. His face. His nose. Pain. Lots of pain. Owwwwwwwww….

One at a time, his other sense returned to him. Suddenly he could feel the rest of his body, taste blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten his tongue, and hear Robin saying, "Well, this is what happens when you run into a wall. Good job, Kid Flash, good job."

Wait. Wall?

Kid Flash?

After feeling over his face gingerly (his nose wasn't bleeding, luckily), Wally slowly opened his eyes. Robin was leaning over him with a smirk, Megan was back by his bed, looking very concerned, Superboy was next to her, and Kaldur was in the doorway.

"What are you guys doing in my room?"

Robin rolled his eyes as Megan answered, "You were screaming again. In your sleep. Well, not just screaming. Your mind was also in a tremendous amount of pain. I couldn't sleep, and I-I was scared, so I got Superboy."

They all looked to Superboy, who shrugged and muttered, "I didn't know what to do."

"So we got Kaldur and Robin," she continued, "to wake you up."

Robin smirked at him again. "Is this night terror deal going to become a regular thing?"

"Wait," ordered Wally slowly. "Night…mare?" he ran his hands down his sides, pausing at his abdomen. He was sure there was supposed to be something there…bandages, or soreness, or something. He'd been…he frowned as he tried to remember. Stabbed, maybe? Shot? Broken ribs? Impaled? Anyways, his horrific injury, it was gone, and…

Kaldur stumbled as something pushed him out of the way of the door, a puff of air his only explanation. Robin blinked as his best friend seemingly disappeared before his eyes, and looked around at his other teammates, confused. "What just happened?"

A blast of wind in the face later, Wally was back, panting slightly in exertion. "LOOK!" he shouted, striking a dramatic pose. "DID YOU SEE THAT?"

Everyone winced at such a loud attack at his or her ears this early in the morning. "Yeah," Robin muttered, "You zipped off to who-knows-where and came back in less than no time. What's the big deal?"

Wally' grin widened at Robin's words. "What's the big deal?" he cried. "I'm the _fastest boy alive!_" Unexpectedly, he threw his arms around the boy wonder, squeezing him tightly. Robin immediately stiffened. "I love you." He ran to Kaldur next and repeated the action, and then to Megan, and then to Superboy. "And I love you. And I love you. And you." He stepped back and spread his arms. "I just love all of you. So much."

Robin glanced at the rest of the team. "Guys, I think he's finally lost it."

"I'm the fastest boy alive, I'm the fastest boy alive, I'm the fastest-" he broke off his chant suddenly when he realized what Robin had said. "What, no, I'm not crazy. It's just, in my dream, I didn't have my powers anymore." He shuddered and dropped his voice to a whisper. "It was awful. I don't know how you guys _live_."

The group at whole sighed while Robin did a face-palm. "I mean, no offense," Wally continued, "but you guys are slugs. No, not slugs, like that three-toed sloth from the rainforest or something that takes half a year to get anywhere. How do you do it?"

"Thanks, Wally," Kaldur commented dryly.

"And you guys can't eat _anything! _That really can't be healthy. I mean, you guys only eat, like, three meals a day."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "Are you done yet?"

Wally ran a hand quickly through his hair. "I think…I can't really…remember it." He frowned as his hand ghosted over his ribcage again. "I got hurt…I think, right here, and I bled out my powers."

"You bled out your powers," Superboy repeated skeptically.

"It was a dream, okay?" he defended, still frowning. "It actually _really _hurt."

Kaldur looked around to everyone. "Now that this is cleared up, we should be getting back to bed."

Everyone nodded. Megan said, "Wally, if you remember anything else, that we can help you with, talk to us about it, okay?"

"Anything for you..." Wally started, but then trailed off, a frown crossing his features. "Actually…Robin, you were a dick."

"Excuse me?"

Wally brought a hand to his head, struggling to remember. "I don't know…you must have done something really awful, cause I remembering thinking _Robin is a dick."_

The boy in question shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. "I'm just going to go now."

"Me too," added Superboy, leading the way out of the room. After a few goodnights and more reassurances that he wouldn't have any more bad dreams, everyone went back to bed.

* * *

"Robin? What are you doing on my computer?"

He stiffened, hastily closing the files he was looking at and hoping Bruce wasn't feeling too curious. "Nothing, Batman."

His mentor stared at him for a few more seconds, but eventually turned away, apparently deciding it wasn't important, and headed towards the bat car.

"Hey, Batman?"

The man turned, a hint of satisfaction on his features. "Yes, Robin, what is it?"

"The Flashes have never hinted at any other powers, have they?"

Batman gave him another look, the _what-are-you-up-to-Robin _look that seemed to get used more and more often these days. "How do you mean?"

"Like, physic abilities?" Robin asked, looking very hard at his feet.

"No," he answered slowly, "why?"

Robin jumped off the computer chair and hurried up towards the direction of the mansion. "No reason. Just wondering. See you later!"

…it must just be part of having a teenager. It must be.


	11. Bug Boy

A/N: Since you all have been great at reviewing recently, I figured I could give you another chapter earlier than anticipated. (aka, review if you want more). Warning, this fic is cute and fluffy. Little Wally? Necessary.

Alright, there've been different ages that Wally could have gotten his powers and become Kid Flash, so until the writers decide to let us know, it's kind of a mystery. That's why there are no specific ages mentioned, so pre-KF Wally can be however old you want. I've also read the Kid Flash might have dyed his hair brown in some comics. In the show, he obviously doesn't, so this can be a little explanation why.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: At a very early age, Wally came to the conclusion that not enough people in the world had red hair.**

* * *

"_Now try."_

_Wally nodded and whizzed away, a strange colored blur of dark jeans and the light, layered shirts that were in style these days. Within two seconds, he was back, having exited the house, ran all the way around it, and made his way back to the living room again. His feet were bare, as all of his normal shoes wore out while he ran. _

_And his hair was still bright red. _

_Barry Allen bit his lips as a reminder not to swear- heroes don't swear in front of their kid nephews- and sighed. "I give up. These dyes either aren't quick enough to apply on the fly or come out when you run. Sorry, kiddo, it's not going to happen."_

_Wally scowled back at him, his green eyes glittering dangerously. "Look, Uncle Barry, I'm not going to wear goggles and that hood-thing. It makes me look like a bug."_

"_It's called a cowl," the adult snapped quickly, "Not a hood. Cowls are much more dignified. And it does not make you look like a bug."_

"_It does too," Wally muttered. "Nobody's gonna respect a bug boy. Especially with those little things sticking up on the sides!"_

"_Those are lighting bolts! Lighting's my-our symbol!"_

"_They just make me look like I have antenna!" argued the boy. He looked down, thoroughly distressed, and muttered, "And what's wrong with my hair."_

_Barry sighed, quickly pulling the kid into a one arm hug, which he squirmed out of. "There's nothing wrong with your hair. It's great hair. Beautiful hair. Beautiful, bright red, recognizable hair. And it's called secret identity for a reason, squirt. You need the cowl."_

_Wally, for lack of a better word, pouted, even if he was a little old for that sort of thing. "Don't call me squirt! And I'm not going to wear the stupid hood."_

"_Wallace…"_

_The kid glared up at him for a few seconds before finally dropping his gaze and muttered "Fine," snatching his Kid Flash uniform off the couch next to where Barry was sitting. _

_Barry smiled and stood up. "Ata boy," he said, ruffling Wally's hair. His nephew scowled and brushed his hand away. "Tell your mom sorry for me that we got hair dye on the furniture."_

_Wally sighed and nodded. "If she gets mad, I'll make her call you."_

_Barry laughed. "Deal." He was about to say goodbye when he remembered. "Oh! This is for you." He pulled the gift out of his pocket and handed it to his nephew. _

_His eyes widened as he took it in. "A cell phone? For me?" Barry smiled at his reaction, which Wally took as an answer. "Sweet!" he seized it out of his uncle's hand, as if afraid someone would take it from him, before fully examining it. "Red? Isn't that kind of obvious?" he asked skeptically. _

_Barry laughed and went for Wally's hair again, which he ducked away from. "I couldn't resist," his uncle said. "I'll text you if there's an emergency."_

"_Wait," interrupted Wally, "What if it's during school?"_

_The adult sighed. "Then tell the teacher you gotta puke and run, kid. It's not that hard."_

_Wally's mouth dropped open. He looked up at his uncle in shock before his face broke into a grin. "I love my life," he said, beaming at the world. _

_Barry snorted. "And you'll grow to love the cowl too, kid."_

"_Do I have to-"_

"_Yes. Anyways, just for the heads' up, these phones are only temporarily. I asked Bats if he could work on some communicators for us, so they should be here soon. If nothing happens, I'll see you next Saturday. I've got a nice route planned out, a 200 mile little run-"_

"_Wait," his nephew interrupted, his face excited. "You know Batman?"_

_Barry sighed. "Yes, yes, I do know Batman. He's a lot scarier in person. In fact, downright terrifying at times."_

"_Can I meet him?"_

_The adult raised an eyebrow. "He wears a cowl."_

_Wally's look of wonder melted into a scowl so quickly it was almost comical. "Cowls are for old people."_

"_Hey!"_

"_Bye, Uncle Barry!"_

_Barry Allen sighed as he said goodbye, ruffled Wally's hair one last time, and sped off towards home. Having a sidekick wasn't that much work, no matter what he'd heard from Batman. The Dark Knight just took everything too seriously. Wally was a great kid. _

_Barry was a little nervous about calling Kid Flash to his first mission. It was nothing serious, but still, first mission with a sidekick. He'd have to make sure Wally was safe, but still looked capable to the people. Oh, yeah, he'd have to call out "Kid Flash" really loudly a couple times to make sure people got the name right. First mission. Today was the day._

_Wally had shown up with the top of his cowl cut off, exposing his hair. Figures. _

"What was that, dear?"

Barry Allen's eyes fluttered open at the sound of his wife's voice as she slid into bed next to him. "Nothing," he said at first, "Remembering. I think I was dreaming."

Iris West Allen nodded. "You did doze off a little."

Barry nodded, latching his arms around the waistband of his wife's nightdress and pulling her closer. He lay there for a few more seconds, before whispering in her ear. "I miss Wally."

Iris rolled over so she could hug him back and frowned. "He's still around."

"Not as much," Barry complained, "he's growing up."

"He just has his own team now, dear. That's all."

"Mm," he agreed, resting his forehead against hers. "Do you know what he asked me the other day?"

"What?"

"He asked me for a solo mission. It was just a small fire, over at that cupcake bakery, and he said, 'Uncle Barry, I can handle it. You don't have to go. No, seriously, don't stand up. You don't have to bother. I've got it covered.' Scariest moment of my life."

His wife snorted. "Sounds like a 15-year-old. What happened?"

"I went with him. Let him do most of the rescuing, but I still went. What happened to that little kid who zipped in here every day, asking if I could show him how do phase through a wall just one more time?"

"Are you talking about me?"

Barry Allen nearly jumped out of his skin as he sat up suddenly and twisted towards the doorway. "Wallace Rudolph West," he exclaimed, bringing a hand to his chest. "Next time you enter this house you are going to _knock _at the front door, and only after we say 'come in' will you do so."

His nephew frowned. "But you gave me a key!"

"That was for emergencies."

"Oh," he said, head drooping, "Sorry."

Iris sighed. "Wally, come back, he didn't mean to snap. He's just an old man who you nearly gave a heart attack."

Barry raised an eyebrow. "Who are you calling old? Wally, get over here. Why are you creeping around other people's houses in the middle of the night?"

Wally flashed a grin and entered the room a couple more paces. "I wasn't creeping," he answered. "I just wanted to let you know I'm back, in case you needed me. I haven't even gone home yet."

"Oh," Barry replied, "well, thanks, kiddo. How was the mission?"

His smile widened. "Great! Everything went smoothly for once. I did one move and totally tripped, like, a dozen guys at once. They went down like bowling pins."

"That's awesome," his uncle replied, noticing the small yawns that the boy kept letting escape him. Poor kid. "Now, I don't mean to keep you, but there is one thing you have to do for me."

"What?"

He opened his arms. "Hug for your favorite hero?"

Wally made a face. "Aw, Uncle Barry!"

"Aw, Wally!"

Iris laughed as Wally surrendered to the hug, and then kissed his aunt on the forehead. "Bye, Uncle Barry. Bye, Aunt Iris. I'll lock the door on my way out."

"And knock next time too!" Barry called out as Wally raced away. He sighed and lay back down.

"Do you think he'll knock?"

Barry smiled softly at his wife. "Doubt it." He kissed her before reaching back to his nightstand to turn of the light. "Hopefully he doesn't interrupt anything."


	12. The Rather UnMystic Arts

A/N: This one's based on the latest episode, _Denial. _I figured since Kent Nelson could use magic without the helmet, others could, contains more of Wally's thoughts than action or dialogue- hope that's okay. I mean, I would be pretty freaked out, too. The quotes at the bottom are from the end of the episode.

Disclaimer: Same one as before. You get it.

**Summary: He can't even complain about it, because that would be acknowledging its existence.**

* * *

Not that he would ever, ever, ever even dare to _think _about mentioning this to anyone…

But magic _sucked._

He still denied its existence to everyone and anyone who wasn't a cute girl, including himself, most of the time. Come on, he was Kid Flash. He was a living science experiment. There's no way he could possibly support magic. He'd barely mentioned anything about the whole Dr. Fate fiasco to Uncle Barry, who backed off because Wally had managed to convince him that he was pretty traumatized about Kent Nelson dying in his arms. And for the most part, people didn't ask.

He was probably the worst science experiment ever conducted. Seriously, a middle schooler could point out all the faults. One trial. No control group. Little to no constants. Now he was slightly magic, too.

Oh, yeah. That was a secret he also planned on taking to the grave. Don't tell. Although, it did explain a lot about how Mr. Nelson had learned his magic.

Like, now he could tell when something was really magic or just advanced science. Somewhere inside him, he could sense it. Often he bluffed his way through explaining it with science, pretending he didn't know, pretending it didn't exist. Things were easier when magic didn't exist. However, now it did, and he knew when it was around. It followed him everywhere, even when it was alone.

After all, you couldn't escape your own mind.

It was yesterday, in his room back in Central City. He knew Robin wouldn't appreciate him borrowing his practice Robinrangs or Batarangs or whatever they were called, but he just wanted to see what they were like. It's not as if they were dangerous or anything. Their edges were rounded, so they wouldn't pierce walls and explode like Robin's real ones did.

However, maybe because of that, he'd also forgotten the whole "boomerang" part of them. When he'd tossed it lightly into the air, looked down to pick up the other one, and back up to see how far it had gone, he seriously hadn't expected to see a black and red nightmare whizzing for his eyes. He'd had enough time to think _oh, crap, _and throw an arm to shield his face super quick, wondering how bad the bruise would be.

He hadn't expected a golden ankh to appear from his hand and act as a shield from the weapon, sending it clattering to the floor.

_Crappity crap crap. _

He swore to himself that he would never, ever, ever let that happen ever again, promptly ranted at Dr. Fate in his mind because he was not Nabu's new host body, no matter what the helmet thought. Just because he was its keeper does not mean that he would be using it. Besides, Uncle Barry would be so disappointed if his nephew went from Kid Flash to Kid Fate.

"_The boy's soul belongs to the world of science, not sorcery."_

So no.

"_The boy will take the helmet and make sure you're put to good use."_

"_Yeah, I swear!"_

Magic was stupid.

He probably should spend his time worrying about the more immediate problem. Robin would be on a killing rampage when he figured out his batarangs were missing.


	13. The Opposite of East

A/N: Yeah, I know it's short. I apologize. So, did anyone else notice that Wally never tells the team his last name? The whole team throws around his first name like it's nothing, but that's it. That's why this was born. That, and the fact that I love friendship stories. Yes, I am aware of the YJ comic books that are coming out. I don't know exactly what they contain, so if he shares his last name there, let's ignore that, shall we? Disclaimer: Do not own _Young Justice._

IMPORTANT: Go to my profile and vote in the poll. It detirmines the fate of the next chapter.

**Summary: Wally knows he's never been the best at changing the topic.**

* * *

"Hypocrite."

Wally looked up from his AP chem homework (yes, he did his homework at Mount Justice, just in case there was a mission call), disoriented. "What?"

"You're a hypocrite," Robin repeated.

Wally raised his eyebrows and put his hands behind his head, glad for an excuse to stop working. Seriously, teacher, he understood the concept already. No need to assign 40 extra problems. "Am I really?"

"Yes," Robin insisted, leaning on the back of a chair across the table from Wally. "Here you are, always bugging me about the fact that I haven't revealed my secret identity, when you haven't told us your name either."

"Hey, Rob? Nice to meet you. I'm Wally."

"Last name," replied Robin shortly. "You failed to mention it."

Wally felt something in his gut clench as Robin mentioned the words. He'd hoped nobody would notice that fact. He glanced down, biting his bottom lip. "Well, I was thinking about getting it changed, anyways. Wally's fine."

"Why?"

Wally sent a sharp glance up to Robin, letting him know exactly what he thought of his little interrogation routine. "I'm not on the best terms with my parents." He paused, considering his options, and continued, "They don't even know I'm Kid Flash."

Wally could see the smallest expression of surprise cross Robin's face before he smoothed it over again. Surprised, probably, at the information and the fact that he'd relinquished it so easily. He hoped Robin could read in between the lines. _See? I do trust you._

"Then how do you explain to your parents where you are all the time?"

Wally gave a small smile. "My aunt and uncle cover for me. I have a room at their house and everything. What about your parents, do they know?"

Robin seemed a bit startled at the sudden turn of events, judging from the way he was biting the inside of his cheek. Wally waited patiently for the "none of your business" that was surely coming, or, more likely, just disappearing without answering.

"I'm adopted," replied Robin shortly, studying Wally carefully for his reaction.

The response really didn't answer the question at all, and only vaguely addressed the topic. However, Wally knew it was probably the best answer he was going to get. It was probably an honor that Robin had trusted him with that much information after only being on a team together for a few months. Before that, they hadn't really been close.

"Hey, do you want to order a pizza?"

Robin rolled his eyes under his sunglasses. "Sure, Captain Subtle. Meat lovers or Hawaiian?"

But now, they were best friends.


	14. It Just Didn't Happen

A/N: This is slightly a response to the last chapter, and very much a response to the poll. Thanks, everyone who voted! Be on the lookout for more soon. My little brother (the same one who introduced me to this show) has been handing me ideas left and right. It's great. Unproductive for anything else, but great. Disclaimer: I don't own _YJ. _

**Summary: Robin's not very good at thinking like Wally, either. **

**

* * *

**

_How funny would it be_, Wally thought idly, _if his name was Robert. _He inhaled another half slice of pizza before deciding against it. _Nah. Batman's not that ironic. _

He continued to wolf down all the pizza leftovers from the night before when the boy wonder himself wandered in. "Speak of the devil," he said aloud, watching as Robin ran a hair through his messy hair-well, at least he'd gotten all the blood out of it from the mission last night- and grabbed the seat across the table.

"You talk to yourself?"

"What?" Wally asked, pulled from his wandering thoughts about nothing in particular.

"You said, 'Speak of the devil,' which implies you were speaking, and as there's nobody else here…"

Wally scowled as Robin beat him to the last piece of pizza. "Yeah, well, figure of speech."

Robin did nothing but raise an eyebrow, giving Wally enough time to realize what he had said and mentally smack himself in the face for it. After a moment or two to make sure Wally wasn't going to try to correct himself (or, more likely, dig himself a deeper hole), Robin finally replied, "So. You never mentioned your last name."

Wally sighed. "Do you really want to know?"

Robin tilted his head, scrutinizing his friend. Wally braced himself for the answer. "…No."

"What?" Wally asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"No," Robin repeated, taking a bite of his pizza and chewing slowly. "It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't…matter."

"I mean, a name doesn't define a person."

Wally glared at Robin suspiciously. "Is this your way of telling me to stop asking about your secret ID?"

Robin shrugged. "Interpret it the way you want. I'm just not going to make you tell me if you don't want to."

Wally blinked, taking his time digesting the information, as Robin smirked and took a bite of his pizza. There. That should keep him busy for-

"My last name is-"

"NMMNHP!" Robin interrupted, as loud as he could with his mouth full. He swallowed hastily (note to self: doesn't make your throat feel real good) and continued, "I said don't tell me."

"But what if I want to tell you?" Wally challenged.

"I said I didn't want to know. So there."

"Sunset," he blurted out.

"What?"

Wally grinned, the closet thing to a smirk that had ever crossed his face in all the time Robin had known him. Wally just wasn't a smirking person. "That's all you're going to get," he said simply.

"Wally Sunset," Robin replied dubiously.

"That's not my last name, stupid. It's your hint." He stood up and pushed in his chair.

"Hint for your last name?"

"Yep." He was gone before the word reached Robin's ears.

Robin told himself it didn't matter- it was just a name, just a name, he didn't give out his own name- but he couldn't help thinking about it. It was a puzzle, after all. You couldn't give Robin a puzzle and expect him not to try and solve it. It would be like seeing Superboy in a cape. It wouldn't happen.

"Sunset," Robin muttered. "Wally Dusk? Wally Twilight? Wally Nightfall?"

He must be thinking about it wrong. Wally was a science nerd. He knew the sun didn't really 'set' it just left visibility of one side of the earth. What would he possibly think was sun-set?

"WALLY!" he called. "What kind of last name is International Date Line?"


	15. Sick Day

A/N: So this fic started out serious, but quickly turned into...this. Hope you like it! Oh, by the way, I've noticed authors usually mention something about the hundred review mark, but as I forgot and we've seem to have blown by it, well, here's to a hopeful 150. Thanks you guys. Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: Because even Wally has those days. **

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"Mr. West?"

Wally jerked out of his trance, his eyes snapping from their half-glazed over position to wide open. "Here," he called out belatedly, causing some of his classmates to laugh as he did so.

Mrs. Fontanels, an old woman with thin hair and the face of a turtle, scowled at him. "Mr. West," she repeated, "I know you may not find matrices the most interesting, but do try to stay awake in my class."

Wally felt his face heat up. "Yes, m'am," he answered quickly. "It won't happen again."

He was almost positive it would. It was hard when you had missions until four in the morning in New England and had to jog halfway across the country to get home to sleep for less than an hour, than wake up, stuff your face, and get to this stupid place on time. He'd almost fallen asleep in every class so far. And he still had three more left to go.

"Mr. West, perhaps you should go see the nurse."

He felt himself jolting out of his sleeping-with-eyes-open thing tactic again, and looking up to see the concerned face of the teacher and curious expressions of the rest of the class. "No," he said slowly, mind struggling to remember the question. "I'm fine. Really."

"Mr. West, you haven't been paying attention to my class in the slightest and you look unnaturally pale," the teacher responded stubbornly, bending over her desk to write out a hall pass. "The nurse. I insist. Go."

The nurse deduced that Wally quite possibly could faint any minute (she was exaggerating, he swore), mentioned something about a fever, and decided Wally should go home sick for the day and suggested to him that he stay home tomorrow as well. He took a quick nap in the nurse's office (in hindsight, that may not have helped his case) while she called for his parents to pick him up.

"Mr. West?"

Wally couldn't quite summon the willpower to open his eyes. "1902," he mumbled, not moving.

"Mr. Allen, actually, I'm Wally's uncle. The main office called me after his parents were unavailable."

There were a rustle of papers, some more murmurings, before Wally was being shaken awake by a familiar face.

"Wally. Wake up. Time to go home."

"Five more minutes," he mumbled, trying to roll over, but an arm stopped him.

"Wally. You're sick. You're at school. Get up."

He sat up at blinked himself awake enough to follow his uncle's instructions to get his things from his locker and follow his uncle into the car.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Wally connected that he was sick, getting picked up from school, and Uncle Barry was the one driving him home. When he was sick.

"Where's Aunt Iris? Where's Mom?"

Uncle Barry flashed him a grin using the mirror. "What, Kid, you don't like me?"

"They make good soup. Last time you tried, you burned it." Wally accused sluggishly.

Barry laughed from next to him. "It's always about the food, isn't it? All right, I admit, I'm not the best cook. But you Mom's busy and Iris is covering that story out-of-state. So I got off work to come take care of you."

"M'tired."

"Can you wait till we get home to crash?"

Wally yawned. "That's the third night mission this week. How does Robin do it?"

"What's that?"

"Robin. He stays up late all the time and he's never tired."

"He's used to his own sleep schedule. Besides, neither Robin nor anyone else has to deal with a super-metabolism the way you do. You go through energy so quickly, Wally-"

"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted. "Chemical energy and always being hungry and stuff. It's awful. I'm hungry."

"Traffic's bad, Kid."

"Why didn't we run home?"

"Well, when they said 'sick' I wasn't sure whether that entailed this or you barfing all over the place. I don't think a little run is good for an upset stomach."

"Stupid."

"Look, we're almost there."

"M'tired."

"You said that already."

"And hungry."

"You could be having a growth spurt again."

Wally shuddered. "No thanks. I'm good."

Uncle Barry found the house, parked, and managed to walk Wally up to the "guest room" (although Wally used it at least once a week, so it would be better named Wally's room) before his nephew passed out again on the bed. Barry took the temperate again- 104, which for a speedster isn't quite as serious as it sounded, but was still a little high. He wondered if Wally's exhaustion was from all the missions or from the virus, or if the missions had led to the virus, of if they were completely unrelated. He debated talking to Batman about it, but eventually decided against it. Wally was fifteen now, a big kid, he wouldn't approve.

Barry made a can of soup (sticking with the heating-up-out-of-the-can variety this time) for when Wally woke up, and resigned himself to an afternoon off from work that he would have to make up tomorrow. He decided against patrolling, as well, in case Wally woke up, and settled himself in to watch a rerun of the baseball game from last Sunday.

"What! He was safe! Come on…"

"Baseball is pointless. I bet the players sleep through their own games."

Seven innings later, Barry looked up to find Wally at the foot of the stairs, hair mussed and cheeks flushed. "Why, hello, Mr. Sunshine!"

"I'm hungry," Wally announced, grabbing a blanket off the couch and wrapping it around himself.

"Well, I made soup! And the kind from a can, too. So it's perfect." He walked next to his nephew into the kitchen, setting out a bowl in front of his place at the table and ladling soup into it.

One scalded tongue and several apologies later found Wally and Barry both at the table, one uncharacteristically grumpy and the other wincing at the fact that serving his sick kid nephew boiling soup may not have been his best move.

"I hate soup. And baseball. And sleep. And Robin. And Artemis. And blonds. And-"

Barry sighed and listened dutifully to Wally's long rant, vaguely wondering at the semi-random way he moved from topic to topic. He couldn't have been this bad when he was a kid. It must be the super-metabolism thing.

"…and I hate food. I'm hungry."

"…We have soup."

"And I hate you."

"Thanks, Kid."

"And I hate how you call me Kid. I never know if you mean, kid, like kiddo, or Kid, like short for Kid Flash."

"Um….both?"

"I hate it when you don't give me a good answer."

"I'm trying! You know what, why don't you head back up to bed."

"I can't sleep. I'm hungry. What else do we have besides soup?"

"How 'bout a sandwich?"

"Sandwiches are boring. I have one, like, _every _day."

"Knuckle sandwich?"

"The Flash shouldn't be threatening child abuse."

"I'm not the Flash. I'm Barry Allen."

"I should go to Superman. He'd be so mad."

"Fine. Pasta?"

"Now you're talking."

Five minutes and a ridiculous amount of burned pasta later…

"You're awful at this."

"I'm trying."

"Let me do it. It can't possibly be worse."

"You're sick, Wally."

"Do I care?"

"…good point. Have at it, kiddo. See how I said kiddo that time?"

"I'm not a kid!"

"Wally,"

"Go away! You're so loud! You never stop talking."

"Pot…kettle?"

"What? What's that supposed to mean?"

Barry sighed. "Nothing. Forget it. I'm going out on patrol."

"You're just going to leave me here?"

"Yeah. Have fun. No house parties while I'm gone."

"Uncle Bar-ry!"

The Flash was out the door.

Fighting crime is nothing compared to grumpy teenagers.


	16. After Kid Flash

A/N: Not really much to say about this one, just another little reflection piece. Well, there's a bit of irony at the end, maybe, tell me if you catch it. I'll have another chapter up soon, hopefully. Thank you all! I do not own _YJ. _

**Summary: Out of all the things Wally has claimed to be, creative was never one of them. **

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* * *

**

In front of anyone (Megan, Robin, heck, even Flash) he was the silly, overconfident speedster everyone knew and loved. He cracked jokes as much as possible, flirted with girls all the time, ate however much he want, played video games as much as he could, and generally enjoyed life as much he could.

It was when he was alone that he ever acknowledged the not-so-great parts.

_"Your junior Justice League is a joke."_

Thank you, Speedy.

_"I don't want any part of it."_

Thanks a lot.

The whole situation was complicated. On one hand, he was certain that he could never go off and do what Speedy-Red Arrow- Roy did. He just couldn't. He had no idea how to go looking for missions by himself, they usually found him. He'd only rarely fought others completely on his own before. The majority of his strategy depended on others. Plus, it just felt…wrong, to go completely solo. Not to work with Young Justice, not the League, not the Flash…nobody. He'd be completely alone.

Wally didn't do alone.

He didn't think he was smart enough, tough enough…good enough to handle it.

On the other hand, there was no way he could look at Roy and call him wrong.

When he was very little, he'd idolized the Flash. Then one day, add Wally, some chemicals, a lab, and lightening, and _boom! _Suddenly Flash was more of his teacher (slowly turning into a father) than his idol.

After a year, give or take, of having his powers, Flash had seriously started to considering taking on his own little sidekick and had started to make calls to others, asking for opinions and advice. That's when he'd met all of the other heroes; he and Flash had run (_run!) _to Metropolis for the day, just to say hello to Superman. Wonder Woman had popped in one day to say hi and take a look at him. And, in a surprise visit, on their way back from some trip Green Arrow and Speedy decided to take a pit stop in Central City.

Speedy was instantly the epitome of cool. He was fifteen. He was tall and strong and his voice didn't crack. He'd already been a sidekick for a year, knew loads of stuff about hand-to-hand combat, and kicked butt at Halo. The best part was that he'd found a fellow redhead. Life was great.

Looking back on it, he could see that Roy had probably babysat him a little bit while Flash and Green Arrow talked. Wally respected him even more for it. If he had the opportunity, he would totally want to go judge and shape the future sidekicks.

Roy hated being a sidekick.

When he'd started being Kid Flash, he'd try to impress Speedy whenever he could. At first he was scared that the other would be jealous that Wally had stolen his colors (red and yellow) but Speedy never said a word about it. He'd just grunted when KF brought it up and then shot another arrow to see if Kid could catch it again. Yeah, that wasn't the safest game, but it was so much fun. They hadn't played in years, though. Speedy had been drifting away from the world of sidekicks. Of course he'd drift away from things like that as well. He'd met Speedy at least twice times before he met Robin- that was another story.

He lie down on his bed, hands behind his bed, staring at the ceiling, and wondered what he would possibly be like when he was older, as a cool solo guy.

He'd be faster. He'd be stronger. He'd be a lot less clumsy. He'd be better at hand-to-hand. He'd be more accurate. Smarter. Faster. He'd be called…

Wally frowned. He'd never pictured himself in anything other than his KF uniform. He closed his eyes and really thought. What did he want to look like when he grew up?

As hard as he concentrated, as much as he thought, he could only see a deep red, a couple lightning bolts, until he realized his was picturing Uncle Barry in his head.

_That's no good, _he thought. _Like Uncle Barry's going anywhere. He'll probably be doing this longer than I will._

Flash Two? No, that was just pathetic.

He'd have to be something other than the Flash.


	17. Corruption

A/N: While this is not my best piece of writing, I feel it is highly it is highly realistic. I enjoyed it. The usual: review if you can, I don't own _Young Justice, _how do you guys feel about me writing the time KF met Robin? Thank you!

**Summary: Because when you're best friends, you always try to pass on your favorite pastimes. **

* * *

"She's cute."

His reluctant companion rolled his eyes from underneath his sunglasses. He'd been sitting in the same position for the better part of an hour, feet planted, arms folded across his chest, while Wally kept on going up to the buffet bar. Really, he was surprised they hadn't been kicked out yet.

Wally looked up at his friend expectantly. "What, no comment?"

"Dude, three quarters of the girls you see you think are cute. And some of them have been twice our age!"

Wally scowled. "Well, I'm just trying to make conversation."

"Maybe you wouldn't have to make conversation if you'd just let me go already."

"But Rob, you promised," Wally whined.

Robin scowled, regretting the decision to ask Wally go pick something up for him more than ever. Seriously, that taken Wally about five seconds. They'd been here for hours.

"Wait," said Wally slowly, looking at Robin. "I know the problem."

The boy wonder snorted. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah," said Wally, "I should have known. You're too little. You don't like girls yet."

"_What_?" yelped Robin. "I _am not _little. I do too. Just because I'm more subtle about it doesn't mean that I don't."

Wally grinned wickedly. "Oh yeah? Prove it."

Robin cast his eye around the restaurant. "Wally, all the chicks here are either Goth or over 50."

If only that would discourage him. "No worries, my friend," he answered easily, gulping down the last of his Jell-O and pushing his 17th plate away. "We can hit the mall."

* * *

When he said he wanted to get out of the buffet place, he'd really meant that he wanted to go home. Not here.

"Let's go to Dick's."

Wally looked at him incredulously. "The sporting goods store? Girls don't hang out in there."

"Why not?"

Wally sighed at his friend's naivety. "Robin, have you ever been to a mall before?"

"_Do you have to call me that so loud?"_

"I'll take that as a no."

"I have too!"

"Then why are you _freaking out!"_

"Who are you calling a freak?"

"Wait, wait. Was that a crack about my awesome powers?"

"I don't know, Kid Mouth. Is the sky blue?"

Wally, for once, amazingly shut his mouth, looked at Robin, and smiled before replying. "Rob, I see what this is about."

Robin glowered at him. "Oh, really."

"You're jealous."

"_I AM NOT-"_

"Don't worry. I can get you a girlfriend before the mall closes, promise."

Robin looked around for the fastest method of homicide he could make look accidental.

* * *

"So, where do girls your age hang out?"

"Victoria's Secret."

Wally blushed a little. "I'm going to assume that was a joke for my health. You know we can't go in there."

"Why not?"

Wally visibly cringed. "Just…just no, Robin. Where else?"

"Um…Build A Bear?"

All right, Robin knew death by embarrassment wasn't actually possible, but it was as sure as heck fun to try.

"Robin," Wally snapped, "Have you ever actually done anything remotely normal in your entire life?"

"Of course. I'm captain of the mathletes back home."

Wally threw his hands in the air. "That's it. I-" he stopped short, his look of frustration turning into one of understanding. "I know what you're doing."

"NO YOU DON'T, WALLY. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW MY NAME. HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY-"

"You really are still scared of girls, aren't you?"

Plan B: Suicide. Now.

* * *

What would Batman say if he knew Robin was spending his Saturday afternoon trying to seduce a girl instead of training? Well, he would not be happy, put it like that.

And not just any girl either. He had to seduce a drop-dead gorgeous girl in order to make sure Wally never ever did this to him again. For Wally's sake as well as his own. He might never know how close he came to dying today.

"Hurry up, Rob-Rob. Where are we going?"

He still might die today, actually.

He acquired his target at Aeropostale. She was short, probably that little cheerleader they threw into the air at football games. She had brown hair with highlights, and had just bid goodbye to her other friends, telling them she'd catch up with them.

"_No, go away, Wally. You look like a creeper. Fine, just make yourself scarce, okay? If I look like an idiot because of you, I'll poke your eye out with a hanger. Yes, literally. Go!"_

Mission a-go.

"Um, excuse me. Have you seen my friend? He's a ginger, little taller than me?"

Target looked up at him, slightly weirded out. "No," she said quickly, looking back down at the rack of tee shirts she was looking at.

"Great," Robin mumbled, seemingly to himself. He stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds, and then turned back to her. "Do you think there's another Aeropostale in the mall?"

She looked at him again and said, "No, I don't think so. Hey, do you think you could hold this for me?"

Score.

* * *

Wally, although shocked, was extremely pleased that his best friend had gotten the girl's phone number. After talking to the girl, Robin found that he wasn't feeling as irritated either. Of course, when Wally asked if he actually was going to call the girl, he answered, no, of course not. Still, flirting was exciting in a different kind of way than crime fighting. Maybe that's why Wally did it so much. Not that he would ever, ever turn into Wally. He was an extreme.

But he might, you know, check out girls a little more often.


	18. Doctor B

A/N: I know I promised a chapter about the time KF and Rob first met. This is it, don't worry. It just became so long I had to split it into two parts. Warning: As Wally isn't conscious for most of the chapter, they actually don't interact at all. Next time is all about them, I promise. As I am still in the process of writing it, reviews would be nice, to tell me if you like it and/or suggestions. =) Extra points if you can guess what's wrong with Wally-I might have very briefly _mentioned _it a few chapters ago.

This chapter does feature little, excitable Robin, worried Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris, and a guest star. Disclaimer: I do not own _Young Justice._

**Summary: There's not exactly a pediatrician for meta-kids. **

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"_Ooooooooooow."_

Barry looked nervously at his wife, Iris. "What do we do?"

She shrugged. To heck if she knew, it had been a shocker enough to find out her nephew was Kid Flash in the first place. "I don't know. Advil?"

"Do you think that would work in his system? I'm afraid that he might overdose before it has any effect."

"You're the scientist here Barry, not me. I'm just a reporter."

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I, just-"

"_Ooooow."_

The newlywed couple shared another glance. When Wally had showed up at their house a half-hour ago, clutching his stomach, they hadn't known what to expect. Neither of them had really cared for a sick child on their own before.

"Holy shi-"

"_Wallace West," _Iris interrupted.

"Aunt Iris, something's really wrong. What's wrong with me?"

Uncle Barry exchanged another look with his wife, sighed, and led the way into the bathroom. He was in the bathroom because at first he thought he was going to throw up, because his stomach hurt and he'd already eaten at least double his body weight today, so what else could it be? Now, however, he was spread eagle on the floor with a cringe on his face, taking up most of the floor space. Barry crouched awkwardly by Wally's side, patting him gingerly on the shoulder. "Hey, Wally, hang in there. You're going to be fine."

His eyes were squeezed shut and his voice was cracking more than normal. "How do you know?" he whined. "First it was my stomach, then my legs, and now I hurt _all over. _My abs feel better when I curl up in a ball, but when I do that it's like my thighs are on fire. I feel like my arms are being pulled out of my sockets, and I have this huge headache.

Iris situated herself by Wally's head, running a few fingers threw his hair. "It won't last forever, dear."

"But it _hurts. _Everywhere."

"Don't worry. Uncle Barry's going to find a way to make you better."

Barry stiffened, whipping his head around. "_What?" _he mouthed silently. Iris made a face back at him, and he rose, grumbling under his breath. "Yeah, don't worry, Kid," he said loudly, his voice as confident as could be. "You'll be fine. Just leave it to me."

It didn't _look _like a poisoning…but then again, he had better make sure. He'd have to double-check with arguably the smartest member of the League, and one with experience with kids, too.

Barry wondered what his colleague would do if he called and asked for an appointment with Dr. Batman.

* * *

The run to Gotham had been no problem. Locating Batman in the early hours of the night was more of a challenge, but he managed it eventually.

"I thought that was mine, B- oh."

Flash smiled grimly and dropped the thug to the floor. "Sorry, Robin. Didn't mean to jip you out of your baddie."

Robin straightened out of his crouch on the floor. "Don't worry about it," the little guy answered –man, he was small- casting a glance over his shoulder before turning back to the hero in front of him. "Flash…what are you doing here?"

"I'd like to know the same thing," a deep voice added. Flash looked to the shadows at his right, only mildly surprised at Batman's ability to sneak up without Flash ever noticing.

"Hey, Batman," Flash greeted, giving a quick smile before returning to the matter at hand. "It's a bit of an emergency, actually."

In front of him, Robin's eyes (behind the mask) widened. "Cool! Do we get to go to Central City?"

Batman didn't show any sign of Robin speaking, just tilting his head a fraction of a degree to indicate Flash should continue.

"It's Kid."

"Kid _Flash?"_ Robin squeaked, not doing a very good job at hiding his excitement.

This time Batman did throw Robin a look, and the bird quieted down instantly. "What's the problem?" Bat asked swiftly.

Flash sighed, crossing his arms. "I was wondering if you had any equipments or ideas that could help with a medical diagnostic of him. I can't take him to a hospital, obviously, and I need to find out what's wrong with him."

Robin cautiously walked over to stand at his mentor's side as Batman demanded, "Symptoms?"

"He started to get an uncomfortable stomachache- although I'm not sure whether it was his stomach or not- about an hour ago. A half-hour ago, he started to experience pain around his entire body, and now he can barely move because he's in so much pain. I couldn't detect any obvious signs of poisoning, and with his metabolism, he would have had to intake a huge amount for it to have this much an affect. If it is poison, I don't know where it came from, and it's very dangerous."

Batman paused, rethinking all of the information. "Bring him to the Batcave."

"_What?_" yelped Robin.

Flash glanced at the sidekick, and back up to Batman. "Are you sure…well, alright. Meet you there?"

Batman nodded stoically, guiding Robin's shoulder as he turned away. Robin shot one last shocked look back at Flash, as if he couldn't believe that someone had penetrated their stronghold so easily- and, more importantly, at Batman's invitation.

Flash smiled to himself. "Don't worry, Robin," he answered. "I'll be back in a flash."

If Robin thought he was interesting, just wait until he met Kid.

* * *

It was a very rushed trip home, a bad explanation to Iris, and a huge guilt trip when Wally started to cry when Barry lifted him into his arms. He actually did pass out on the run up north, which was either a good thing that he wasn't in any more pain or a bad thing that whatever-it-was was getting worse.

Whichever case, it might have been his fastest run to Gotham to date.

He'd only ever been to the Batcave once before, and that had been before Robin was around. It had involved the Joker stealing Captain Cold's ice gun- not an experience he wanted to repeat. Not only did he have villains to fight, his villain kept getting attacked by other villains. It was the most frustrating thing ever.

Another story.

He ignored the surrounding environment to the Batcave- the League had an unofficial _ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies _policy when it came to secret identities – and just zoomed right up to the door, waiting for it to open.

"Ac-know-ledged," a robotic monotone came from the ceiling. "Flash."

Flash nodded at is words, impatiently shifting Wally's weight in his arms, feeling immensely guilty again as he nephew groaned.

"War-ning: Stran-ger."

Flash's mouth dropped open. "Are you kidding me, Batman? This is him! Just open the door already!"

"War-ning," the voice repeated.

"If you're expecting me to phase through, Batman, I'm not going to put Kid through that."

"Warn-ing."

"Screw this," he started, when the door opened from the inside. Batman scowled at him.

"Impatient?"

Flash scowled back. "It's urgent, Bats, I don't have time for your games. I wanted your help because you're smart and have experience with kids, too. Now, are you going to let me in, or what?"

He ignored Batman's deepening glare as he brushed past him, into the Batcave. The lighting was dim and he couldn't make out the far corners. He turned to Batman behind him, looking down at Kid, who was looking paler than ever. "Alright. Where's the Bat-firmary and what's the plan?"

The other hero responded more quickly than he anticipated. "Just give him to me," Batman ordered, his voice low and angry. "I'll have him back in Central City by morning."

Flash looked at Batman like he was crazy, resisting the instinct to tighten his told on Kid. "What are you, crazy? No way! You're going to have to put up with me, too."

Batman stared at him for a moment, giving Flash the distinct impression that he was formulating an evaluation in his mind, before Batman said, "This way," and started to lead the way across the Batcave.

Well, he seemed to have passed.

The Bat-firmary (well, it probably had a more dignified name than that, but Flash honestly didn't care) looked almost exactly like a hospital room. He didn't ask, but judging by the single door and one-way mirrors, it was probably so Batman could keep healing people here without giving away the Batcave. Batman was strange like that.

Flash laid Kid gently on the table, doing his best not to seem as worried as he was. He glanced up at Batman, who was examining Kid Flash, who'd just accepted his position without moving, a frown on his face. Flash remembered belatedly that while he'd spoken to Bats and Kid many times (Batman had invented the sidekick, after all) they'd never actually met before.

It was really too bad Bat's first impression of KF was this, venerable and unconscious and in civilian clothes, no less.

He couldn't take the silence anymore. As Batman turned away to start typing into a computer on the wall, he stated blatantly, "I need to call my wife."

Batman turned his head quickly to look at Flash. It might have been for a number of reasons. At first Flash thought it was surprise at the mention of him being married, although Flash was almost positive Batman had figured out his secret identity soon after they'd first met. Maybe Bat hadn't checked up on him recently enough. Maybe it was disapproval of the fact that Flash was mentioning a civilian life while in uniform. Maybe he was regretting the fact that he had invited Flash to his cave. There was no way of knowing; the fastest man alive doubted he'd ever be able to read Batman's expressions.

He continued anyways. "I assume you have a secure line you'd prefer me to use?"

"I can show you to it," a voice piped up in the doorway.

For once, Batman responded before Flash could. "Robin, I thought I told you to go home and get to sleep."

Flash admired the kid's bravery. He didn't flinch at the harsh tone, just gave a casual shrug. "Batman, that was a really early night. I wasn't tired. I wanted to see if I could train-"

"Don't lie to me," Batman growled, and Robin quickly backtracked.

"Fine, I wanted to help you with Kid Flash. I never get to see other kids like me." As he spoke, he tried leaning his body so he could see around Flash to his protégé, but neither of the adults seemed to like the idea.

Flash's face was unusually blank, barely listening as Batman decided, "You will show Flash the phone. Then you will go home. Understood?"

"May I come back in the morning?"

"_Understood?"_

Robin sighed, crossing his arms. "Fine." He turned around, glancing over his shoulder. "It's this way."

It was a pretty generic, cordless phone (all black, but then again, almost everything in here was). Flash impatiently dialed the number, waiting as the line transferred through all the security systems. As he did so, he pretended not to notice Robin didn't actually leave as he was told – he merely hid in a corner, pulling his cape around him to blend in with the dark. He could have done a lot better job, if Robin hadn't been looking for a place where he could see Flash perfectly. The kid was good, no lie, but he still had a lot to learn in the techniques of "subtle."

Flash was hardly the best role model, but at this point, he really didn't care what Robin did or not.

"Iris? Yeah, honey, it's me. Wa- er, Kid's fine. He passed out on the way up here. No, I bet it's nothing really bad. Batman said he'd be back in Central City tomorrow. I think. He's always so serious about things… Of course, honey, he's Batman, and I mean, it's Kid. He's the first of his kind. What are we going to do? No, no, there's nothing you could have done. If anything, it's my fault. I should have made plans in case this sort of things happens…well, I haven't gotten hurt yet, honey!…okay. You know what? I can give you Superman's phone number, if that will make you feel better. He could get me help almost as fast as I could. Are you teasing me? I'll show-"

Flash stopped midsentence as a shout penetrated the air. Within a second, he was in the doorway of the hospital room again, and Wally was awake and sitting up, wide-eyed and panting.

"What are you doing!" he shouted, running over to KF's side and grabbing his shoulder gingerly, ignoring the jump of fright. "Kid. Kid. It's me. It's me, okay? Look at me." Geez, he looked like death, his face pale and his breath coming in short gasps. That bothered him- Kid was never out of breath. Ever.

He ignored the feeling and just concentrated as Kid's bright green eyes met his own. "We're at Batman's place. This is Batman. He's going to help you, okay?" Kid nodded nervously, quickly scrunching his eyes closed again, looking like he was going to cry. He looked up at Batman. "Can you just put him under?"

Kid flinched a little at the statement, grabbing his uncle's arms and squeezing them in a death grip. "Kid," he repeating, lowering his voice, "Wally. I promise. I won't let anything bad happen to you. You're going to be fine. I promise."

Wally nodded fervently, his head shaking slower and slower until he fell forward into Flash's arms. Flash looked up to see Batman putting a needle down on the counter. For once, he was at a loss for words.

Batman gestured back to the phone, which Flash belated realized he was still on the line.

"Hello? Dear, calm down. I was just talking to Batman, not you. Kid's sleeping, okay? Don't worry, I won't. I'll call you back, okay? Love you. Bye."

He looked up at Batman. "What's the situation?"

The Dark Knight seemed to realize that now was not the time to be terse. "Honestly," he stated, "I don't know. You were right; there is no immediate sign of poisoning or anything else. I took a blood sample –that's what woke him up- and the test results should be finished by morning. I can complete scans that are more comprehensive then as well. For now, the best course of action would be to let him sleep."

Flash nodded. "Sleep. Okay." He looked down at Kid, who seemed peaceful, at least for the moment. "Can I crash here?"

Batman seemed to raise an eyebrow. "Crash?"

"Yeah, you know," Flash said, "Sleep. Spend the night. Pass out. Take a siesta."

He considered it. "Fine," answered Batman, "but not in here. I don't want your bumbling anywhere near my equipment." He directed and watched as Flash made himself made a small nest out of blankets that were in the Batcave (seriously, Batman had a million of them in here, who knew?) and finally disappeared without a word.

Flash waited as long as he could- about sixty seconds- when he called out, "You can come out now, Robin."

There was no answer.

"Robin?"

Nothing. Not a sound.

"Huh," Flash said aloud, rolling over, deciding against physically going and checking if Robin had left. One, let the kid sneak out, if that's what he wanted. Two, if Robin had gone back upstairs while he was talking with Bats, then he'd be on a wild goose chase. And he wouldn't want to be responsible to Bats if (or more likely when) some of his stuff got knocked over. Annoyed Batman is not a matter to be taken lightly.

Plus, he had the feeling that Batman was still evaluating himself and Kid in his mind and he wanted to make a good impression, for Kid's sake.

Hopefully Wally would just sleep it off and be better in the morning.


	19. And Nurse R: wait, no way

A/N: First things first: Thank you to all of my lovely reviewers. You guys are awesome. Keep up the good work.

Now, a couple notes about this chapter (which is nice and long, by the way, I hope you like it). I know Robin's a little mature for an 11-year-old at times, but he's Robin, and that's his character. Then again, he's also immature at times, so it balances out. I also hope that Wally's "problem" makes sense. I'm sure eating isn't the only affect his metabolism has on his body. Disclaimer: I officially disclaim _Young Justice._

**Summary: Kid Flash would be the one to take things to literally. **

* * *

A rustling in his room woke Wally up. He assumed it was just the curtains, and kept his eyes shut, hoping to go back to sleep. It was no use- his mind was suddenly, completely awake. Well, that's what he got for having a super metabolism. Sedatives never stayed in his system for long.

Wait. Sedatives?

Why was he thinking of sedatives?

He opened his eyes and quickly realized the smooth white ceiling was not his own, as it obviously lacked his glow-in-the-dark lightning bolts. Wait- that made sense. He'd gone to Uncle Barry's last night. It slowly started coming back. He'd had a stomachache and went to Uncle Barry's, because Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris were cool and might understand better why it was happening. Plus, his mom freaked out and always over-medicated him.

And then his stomachache had started to spread to his whole body, like a wave, until even his fingers and toes and head was hurting. He remembered that. Of course, how could he forget? It was the most painful thing he'd ever experienced in his life.

After that…he frowned, trying to remember anything past that point. All he could remember was a load of pain…Uncle Barry carrying him…Uncle Barry saying something to make him feel better…

Where was Uncle Barry?

He sat up, at a normal speed for him, but must have been very sudden for anyone else in the room, because the person sitting on the end of his bed gasped and did a back flip onto the floor behind his bed. Curious, Wally crawled over and looked over the footboard. A small head, sporting long, spiky black hair and a matching eye mask looked back up at him.

"What'cha doing?" Wally asked curiously.

The boy huffed and stood up. Wally's eyes widened as he did so. Black, red, yellow, utility belt, the R… "Robin?" he asked, something weird happening with his voice. Did it just crack? That had never happened before.

The boy didn't seem to notice. "Yeah," he answered, crossing his arms over his chest.

Geez, for an eleven-year-old, he sure seemed unfriendly. Well, Batman was called the dark knight, but still, he was hoping Robin wouldn't be like that. He'd hoped they'd be friends right away. "I'm-" he started.

"Kid Flash. I know," Robin interrupted. The holes of his mask narrowed as he studied the other boy some more.

Well. That was not how introductions usually worked.

Kid looked up and down his body, trying to figure out what Robin was finding so interesting. Then, as he looked, he started trying to figure out why Robin was here. Then he started trying to figure out where _here _was.

Well, first of all, he was in normal clothes (Uncle Barry called them "civvies") while Robin was in full uniform. That was kinda embarrassing. He wasn't sure why, but it was. It didn't help that they were about three sizes too small. Secondly, he was in a hospital room with no idea how he got there. Uncle Barry must have brought him here, and it must be secure, if Robin was in here, too. Well, he had been sick, but he felt fine now. Impulsively, he swung his legs out of bed, and stood up, grinning as he took a step towards Robin.

Frowning as the world started to spin.

It was almost like the first time he'd ever run at super speed, except he'd only taken a step. Robin caught one arm as he brought the other to his head, hoping to make the dizziness there stop. He had to do a lot of digging through his hair to find his actual head, which was weird, because he'd just gotten a haircut.

"Kid Flash? Kid Flash?"

Wally winced, and not at his physical situation. "Call me Kid," he said, "or KF. Please." He straightened again. "I'm fine. Really. I feel great." He gently pushed Robin's hand off his arm and cautiously took a few more steps forward, before dramatically spinning around back toward Robin, "See? Told you I was fine."

He looked down at Robin. He was really short- a lot shorter than he was, and he was small for his grade. Wow. "So, Robin, what are you doing here?"

The question seemed to throw Robin off- maybe he expected to talk more about Kid Flash than himself. "I, um, I was checking on you."

Kid Flash crossed his own arms. "Well, duh. Did Batman send you?"

Robin shook his head, his detached manner decidedly fading. "No. He doesn't know I'm here. I just wanted to see you. I didn't know you would actually wake up."

Kid felt himself smiling a little. The Robin, the first ever sidekick, wanted to see him. Cool. "Well, then, nice to meet you."

Robin tentatively smiled back. "Nice to meet you too," he replied.

Kid Flash nodded, his gaze wandering over to the only exit that he could see. "Do you know why that door doesn't have a handle?"

Robin laughed at the other's naivety. "It's the Batcave. None of the doors have handles."

His jaw dropped. "Batcave? I'm in the Batcave?"

"Yeah," agreed Robin, who was probably enjoying this immensely. "I couldn't believe it either."

"Man," said KF, "What was wrong with me?" It must have been really bad if Flash had gone to Batman for help.

Robin shrugged. "We don't know. Batman couldn't figure it out. He's doing a major blood test on you to try to get more information."

"Oh." Well then. Today was full of surprises. "Should we go tell him he doesn't have to bother?"

Robin frowned. "What?"

"Well, whatever it was, I'm fine now." He started walking towards the door, examining it. "How do you open this thing?"

"Passcode," Robin answered automatically, "but-"

"Do you know it? Well, of course, you got in here. Can you get us out?"

"I don't think-"

"Is it just me, or is it hot in here?"

"Batman-"

"Where's Flash? Have you seen him? I can't remember all that much, after the pain set in everything was kind of a blur-"

"Do you always interrupt people?" Robin snapped, glaring.

Kid Flash raised his eyebrows, taken aback. They disappeared into his shaggy hair. "Um, sorry."

"Sorry," Robin muttered to himself. "And no, I'm not going to let you out, I'll get in trouble."

"Oh, please?" begged Kid, seriously starting to get on Robin's nerves. "Come on. I need to get out of here and stretch my legs." He started to bounce up and down. "I really need to run. Really bad. Please, Robin, please please please?"

The smaller boy glared at him again. "Batman will be mad."

"I'll deal with it. Don't you worry."

His feelings didn't seem to have any affect on the redhead. Robin made a snap decision that he would probably regret later. "It's your funeral," he announced, reaching up to the wall to activate a holographic screen that hadn't been there a second before.

"Re-cog-nized: Ro-bin."

Kid Flash jumped at the sound of the door. "Whoa! Cool!"

Robin waited impatiently for scanner to finish. "Warn-ing: Stran-ger."

The redhead frowned. "This is my first time ever being here. I don't think your door has met me yet."

Robin's eyes widened, trying to think of the best plan of escape without letting the other into the Batcave. "No, Batman implanted Kid Flash's information in the system last night."

The other continued to play dumb. "Well, why is it calling me a stranger?"

Robin slowly punched in the alarm code in the wall. "Because, obviously, you're not Kid Flash."

"What? I am too!"

Robin smirked, pulling out something from his utility belt. Batman was right; he never knew when he would need it. "It's a relief. I was really afraid the real thing was a little horror brat." He lazily flicked a Batarang in the imposter's direction. Not fast enough to kill him, just knock him out. After all, they were two feet apart from each other.

The Batarang sailed into empty space.

A voice hissed in his ear from behind him, "If I wasn't Kid Flash, could I do that?"

Robin turned, simultaneously crushing the other's foot beneath his heel and managing a punch to his face. He howled, but was on the opposite side of the room within a second.

They must have gotten a DNA copy! He knew Batman had been trying to bust somebody for cloning! He wasn't sure whom, because Batman wouldn't tell him, but he was. And they had managed to find their way into the Batcave and kidnap the real Kid Flash. They were dangerous. So was this kid.

It was like no battle he'd ever taken part in before. Never had he relied so heavily on tripping his opponent, never had he had to focus so much on where his opponent would be a millisecond from now, never had his opponent kept shouting "Dude!" in his face and tried to have a conversation from all four corners of the room at the same time. It was very distracting.

It was both the shortest and longest battle he'd ever been in- about ten seconds- when Flash burst the door open, and just just in time, too. The other boy had grabbed his cape from behind and was using it as leverage he couldn't break, as both his arms were wrapped in it. "Help!" Robin shouted, as the charlatan grabbed the top of his cape and threw Robin headfirst towards the ground.

A pair of hands grabbed his head before it hit, gently lowering him to the ground before the hands disappeared. Robin looked up to see the boy, not disappearing through the door, but pleading to the Flash.

"Uncle- Flash, please, can you convince Robin I'm not an imposter?" The boy begged, flipping his hair out of his eyes. "There's gotta be some mistake. He keeps attacking me."

Robin jumped up, confident now that the Flash would keep him from being knocked over again. "That's not true!" he shouted. "That's not Kid Flash. Look!" he brought his hand back up to the holographic screen on the wall, making a bunch of fast hand movements before finally grabbing something and throwing it to the ground in front of him.

Kid Flash blinked in surprise as a blue, 3-D image (like Star Wars, except more awesome) appeared in front of them. It was…_him. _Down to the exact clothes he was wearing. He looked down at his hair, perfectly neat in the hologram.

Then it clicked. He was looking down at it. He towered at least four inches over his reflection.

Batman obviously didn't do something right.

He turned as he heard Flash smack himself in the head. "Can't believe it," he muttered, stepping forward and grabbing a handful of Kid's hair. KF winced as Flash dragged him around to stand next the hologram. Flash kept looking from him to the hologram, and it was really creeping him out.

"Flash, what's wrong?"

His mentor gave an odd laugh and let go of Kid. "Stay there," he ordered. "Well, this takes the cake. Out of all things. This really does it. Like he doesn't go through enough uniforms without having to replace the entire wardrobe."

"Flash?" Robin and Kid questioned simultaneously. Robin glared and stalked over to the doorway.

"Flash," a deeper voice echoed, stepping into the room. Kid jumped as Batman- _where did he come from? _- looked at the other adult calmly.

"Batman," Robin began, "That's-"

"Oh, shut up," Kid snapped before Robin could tell anyone else he was a fake, his voice cracking again. He turned and grabbed Batman's hand in a flash, shaking it once and saying, "Batman. It's such an honor."

"Get back there, Kid," Flash ordered. KF frowned and grumpily obeyed. Robin smirked and stood next to Batman. "Look at this," he ordered, gesturing from the boy to the hologram and back. "Look at this. Grew overnight. Literally. He grew overnight."

Kid Flash's eyes widened as he look in the hologram next to him again. Of course the Flash was right, now everything made sense. His hair being to long, his clothes being too tight, everything being smaller than it used to be, his voice cracking…

Growing taller was cool. Puberty was not. Neither was the nightmare of pain that was last night.

But still, longer legs meant faster speed…

"Oh my gosh, Flash. We have _got _to retime my mile. I bet I'm so much faster now. Can we do it? Can we go? Do you have any shoes that actually fit me?"

"Ahem," Robin said loudly, glaring.

Kid glanced over to him. "Oh, no, I don't think I could borrow your shoes. You're, like, ten. They wouldn't fit."

"I'm eleven! And I wasn't offering, stupid."

"Robin," Batman warned.

"I still don't think that's the real Kid Flash."

Kid narrowed his eyes, but stopped to look up at Flash when he felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Fortunately or unfortunately, this is the real one," said Flash. "I can tell. Kid wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or insulted at this statement. He was still undecided was Flash looked down and asked gently, "Kid, you alright?"

He decided it was definitely relief and nodded.

"Good," said Flash, clapping him on the back, "You gave me and your aunt a real scare. At least next time we'll know what to expect."

Kid's eyes widened. "Next time?"

"Well, yeah, you're going to grow more between now and adulthood-"

KF threw up his hands and winced. "No need to remind me, it hurt enough this time," he mumbled.

Flash gave him a sympathetic look and glanced back up at Batman. "I can't thank you enough for all the help, B."

"Wait, we're leaving now?" Kid asked.

"Not soon enough," Robin muttered. Batman's mouth tightened into a hard line.

"If that's okay with you," Flash said, looking at Batman, who just nodded. Flash smiled back and said, "Well then, Kid, let's go home. I think you're going to be out of school for the next couple days."

"Yes!"

"We have a lot of shopping to do," he reminded, leading the way out of the Batcave, exchanging one last glance with the other adult as he left the room.

"Can we not bring Aunt Iris? She always takes soooo long. Wait, does this mean extra training, too? Sweet. Oh, what's-"

"Don't. Touch. Anything."

Batman looked back down to Robin as their voices faded. Robin frowned and inwardly sighed to himself. No doubt the "don't make enemies, make allies" lecture was coming on.

* * *

Robin didn't move when he heard a skidding noise behind him, followed by a soft, "Hey."

"Hey," he echoed, knowing exactly who the speaker was. The adults had arranged another meeting for them, a good one this time. Even if Batman hadn't warned him, he could recognize the voice. "Batman says I can't be mad at you, on account that you were a hormonal wreck at the time. The blood work proves it."

There was a soft chuckle behind him, and the voice replied, "That's good, I guess. I mean, now we can start over, right?"

Robin finally turned around, taking in the real Kid Flash for the first time. His uniform was so obnoxiously bright- and Batman thought his color choice was bad- that he had to resist the urge to squint. "You can't ever really re-do a first impression," he stated, watching as Kid Flash lifted his goggles onto his forehead, revealing the same bright green eyes. He'd cut his hair, so now it didn't flop over past his ears, mostly staying in place above his uniform. Robin could see the places where padding had been added, which surprised him, because he thought speedster's uniforms wouldn't carry anything with weight. Then again, if his performance a couple days ago was anything to go by, he did do a lot of rolling on the floor and crashing into things. Maybe he needed it.

"Let's pretend, then," Kid Flash responded. He looked like he was going to join Robin on the edge of the building, but then decided against it. "Hi. I'm Kid Flash. Nice to meet you."

"Robin," he responded, turning back to look out over the city. Of course Batman had given him the boring part of town to patrol.

"You hang out on rooftops a lot?"

He grinned, knowing full well the other couldn't see his facial expressions from behind him. "Oh, yeah," he responded. "It's loads of fun, isn't it?

"I, um, wouldn't know. I tend to keep most my work on the ground. Doesn't it take you a while to get down from here?"

Robin flashed a grin back at the other boy. "Grappling hooks," he said.

"Oh."

"Want me to show you?" he asked, reaching for his utility belt, when another idea struck him. "Better yet, you can try."

"I can _what?"_ his voice cracked again.

"Try," Robin repeated, pulling two of them out of a pocket. "I have a spare."

"Thanks, but I'll pass," he said cautiously, eying the contents of Robin's hands.

"Well, then, how are you going to get down fast enough?" he said, trying to throw his own words back at him as much as possible.

The other sighed. "Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Hi, I'm Kid Flash. Fastest boy alive. I can get anywhere faster than you."

Oo, a challenge. As hard as he tried, he couldn't prevent a smirk from crossing his face. "Really?" he jerked his head towards the building across the street. It was a jump he'd made a million times. "Race you to the roof next door."

Kid Flash smiled back, a genuine smile that Robin hadn't been expecting. "You'd really race me?" he asked, as if he couldn't believe it.

Robin turned, throwing the grappling hook while he did so, laughing as he swung into the air. Poor guy. He had no idea what he was up against. He was Robin, _the _Robin, and he'd been in the sidekick business longer than anyone.

His feet landed on the floor just as a yellow blur appeared on the edge of the rooftop, Robin catching his balance just as Kid Flash appeared in front of him. He knew he hadn't won, but he couldn't bring himself to care that much. The look on the other boy's face was priceless.

"Tie," he replied shortly, crossing his arms.

Robin grinned. "What happened to beating me anywhere?"

The outline of his eyes was barely visible through his goggles; he must have put them back on in the run over. "I got lost," he insisted.

Robin laughed again. "Running across the street?"

"Those fire escapes were confusing!" he said, but he was slowly relaxing too, Robin could tell. "You cackle often?"

"I what?"

"Cackle," said Kid Flash. "You know, that evil laugh thing you got going."

"I do not."

"You _do_."

"I do _not-"_

"Batman to Robin. Over."

Robin jumped as the sound of Batman's voice in his earpiece, realizing hurriedly that he'd forgotten to report in at midnight. He brought his communicator up to his mouth. "Oh, geez, sorry Batman. I forgot- I mean, I got distracted."

He could hear the trace of amusement in Batman's voice. "I assume you have a guest?"

"Yeah," said Robin, looking over his should at Kid Flash, who was looking extremely confused. "Yeah, he got here a little while ago. Everything's fine."

"Are you-?"

"Yes, Batman," he interrupted, not wanting to be warned about being nice again. "Robin over and out?"

He heard Batman sigh and go "Over and out," before hurriedly shutting off the com link. "That was Batman," he explained, hoping that this would blow over.

Wally nodded. "I figured that. He checking up on us?"

"Yep," answered Robin. "It's gonna be a long night." He started to walk back to his perch on the edge of the roof, but this time Kid Flash followed him, sitting down next to Robin's crouch.

"Good time you got me, then."

Robin glanced over to him. "Really?" he said, enjoying the slight teasing that Batman rarely let him get away with.

"Yeah," said Kid Flash, throwing an arm around Robin's shoulder. Robin stiffened. "Time flies when you're hanging with a friend."

"Can," Robin said with difficulty, extremely unnerved at the situation. "You…not…"

Kid Flash looked at him strangely, before his face lit up and he removed his hand. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I should have known. Flash said you Bat-people have personal space issues."

Robin raised an eyebrow, relieved that the arm was off him but extremely uncomfortable about addressing the previously statement. Friend? How did Kid Flash consider them friends? They'd known each other for maybe an hour, total. What did he mean by friends?

"It's not a personal space issue," he responded instead, ignoring the problem. He could ask Batman about it later. "I just don't like to be touched." Wasn't used to being touched, especially as Robin.

"Oh," said Kid Flash, a grin spreading on his features. "Germaphobe?"

"What?"

"It means you're afraid of germs."

"Oh. And I'm not. I'm Robin. I'm not afraid of anything."

"Except being touched."

"I am not! I just don't like it. Just because you don't like vegetables doesn't mean you're scared of them."

"Oh, Rob, lighten up. I bet you're ticklish."

"What did you called me?"

Kid Flash paused in the middle of a laugh. "Rob. You know, short for Robin. You can call me Kid, if you want. Or KF."

"KF," he repeated. "That's not very dignified."

Kid Flash shrugged. "Who cares? What, you've never had a nickname before?"

"Never Rob."

"Well, then, from this day forward."

Robin looked back at him. "Forever?"

Kid Flash laughed. He did that a lot, Robin noticed. "Sure, why not. You know, you're pretty cool, for an eleven year old."

"Well, you're pretty cool, for a-a-"

"Awesome person?"

"You wish. Shut up, we're supposed to be on a lookout."

Kid Flash sighed, but turned back towards the streets. About thirty seconds later, he said, "I'm bored."

A reply immediately popped into Robin's head, but he hesitated. There would be no going back after this. He didn't even like Kid Flash yesterday. He should talk to Batman about it first. Against his will, he heard himself saying, "What happens to time flying when you're with friends?"

Kid Flash smiled at him. He didn't say anything. He just smiled.

Robin decided he didn't need to tell Batman, after all.


	20. Worksheets in July

A/N: The latest episode- I really liked it, by the way- brings us good news and bad news. Good news is that Wally obviously has a big, happy Flash family. Bad news is that some of these stories are now getting further and further away from canon. Whaaatever.

The following chapter is strictly for humor purposes only - even more than the rest of them. Most of the information about Wally's past I made up. I actually found a "quiz for your characters" online, started filling it out for Wally, and decided it would make a good chapter, realistic or not. I pulled out the questions that inspired the best answers. If you can't tell, this takes place shortly after the first meeting of Young Justice. The italics are the real world, the rest in the quiz. Hope you get a good laugh. I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: We all know Wally never takes homework seriously. **

_

* * *

_

_"It's just a few questions," Black Canary assured them, while all five of the team members looked dumbfounded at the sheets of paper they'd been given. "The Justice League has all filled out something like this too. Batman keeps it on the safest hard drive world wide, so you have no need to fear anyone besides yourselves, your mentors, and Batman from seeing these answers. You have two days to think about all of this before you have to hand these back in."_

_He couldn't believe it. A quiz on himself, for Young Justice? Come on, he wanted missions and girls. Not paperwork. If the adults thought that was what this team was about, they had better guess again._

_Still, he better get it over with. Back in Central City, he claimed the Allen's kitchen table as his own and started to work._

**Mandatory Questions**

**1. What about you is heroic?**

Um, I'm Kid Flash. Maybe you've heard of me? If not, well, I'm sidekick. To the Flash. The fastest man alive. If you don't know about him… even though you're Batman, so you should… Well, I dress up in brightly colored spandex and save people. Happy?

**2. Of what benefit could you be to the current group?**

I'm the fastest boy alive. I could benefit any group.

**3. Why would you choose to join the current group?**

Well, because I want to hang out with other sidekicks and go on missions without the Flash. Not that I don't love Uncle Barry, and all, but he casts a very large shadow, if you know what I mean.

**4. What is your real, birth name? What name do you use?**

_Wally paused before answering._

Wallace Rudolf West. I don't know what my parents were thinking. I don't usually tell people about the Rudolf part. I also use Kid Flash.

**5. Do you have a nickname? What is it, and where did you get it?**

Wally. Short for Wallace. My mom's called me that as long as I can remember. Kid Flash is shortened a lot of ways, but mostly KF or just Kid. Uncle Barry, probably.

**6. What do you look like? (Include height, weight, hair, eyes, skin, apparent age, and distinguishing features)**

_Okay. Creeper, much?_

I am 5 feet, 8 inches tall, and hopefully I'll grow again. My weight fluctuates a lot, depending on whether I can eat enough to maintain my metabolism. Somewhere in the range of 140, 150. I think. My hair is awesome. That great red color. Everybody loves it. A couple inches long, I guess, not very, but not short, so I can show it off. My eyes are also awesome. Girls dream about these bright green beauties. Skin- flawless! Usually. Freckles don't count. Girls love freckles. I'm fifteen, thank you. It's a pretty great age. Distinguishing features…well, does being skinny count? Cuz I'm pretty much the definition. Artie asked me if I was bulimic that time at the beach. She's such an a-hole. You shouldn't make fun of that, obviously. That's why I was mad.

**7. In your opinion, what is your best feature?**

All of me.

**8. What's your real birth date?**

Why does this matter?

**9. What one word best describes you?**

Supercrazyfastultraamazing! Ha. One word.

_Wally looked up as the door to the house opened and Aunt Iris walked in. She stopped in surprise as she saw him. "Wally? Is anybody else home?"_

_He shook his head. "Nope. Just doing my homework."_

_"It's July."_

_"Well, Young Justice homework."_

_She nodded in understanding, set down her purse, temporarily ignoring the fact that he was at her house instead of his own, alone, for no apparent reason at all. "What is it?"_

_"Some quiz thing. I don't know, it's stupid."_

_She looked over his shoulder, read his last couple of answers, and sighed. "Well, if the Justice League gave it to you, you should probably take it seriously."_

_Wally frowned, looking down as well. "Yeah, maybe."_

**10. What was your family like?**

I'm an only child. My parents…they're not really…good communicators. My Aunt Iris was the one that spoiled me as a kid. Now, Uncle Barry's there, too. He's my hero. Literally.

**11. What is your most vivid memory?**

Easy. Becoming Kid Flash.

**12. What was your favorite toy as a child?**

Flash action figure.

**13. What was your favorite game?**

Flash action figure saving the day…wow. I was a dork.

**14. What is your fondest, childhood memory?**

Uncle Barry telling me he loved me for the first time.

**15. What is your worst childhood memory?**

One day my Mom forgot to pick me up from Kindergarten. It was freaky.

**16. It is common for one's view of authority to develop in their adolescent years. What is your view of authority, and what event most affected it?**

Alright, superhero community, listen up. We are authority, baby. Seriously? Flash. He knows what's best.

**17. What were your high school goals?**

Breaking the light barrier.

**18. Who was your idol when you were growing up? Who did you first fantasize about in your life?**

Flash.

**19. What is your favorite memory from adolescence?**

From…now. Huh. When Supey laughed at one of my jokes. It was his first laugh ever. It was great.

**20. What is your worst memory from adolescence?**

Again, from recently? Well, Uncle Barry was pissed after the whole Cadmus thing…

**21. What hobbies do you have?**

Running, eating, sleeping, snacking, hand-to-hand combat, munching, jogging and collecting stuff. I know, I wonder how I do it all, too.

**22. Who is your closest mundane friend? Describe them and how you relate to them.**

Robin. He's the only one who can actually understand being a kid and a hero, even if he is a pip squeak. Speedy's really cool too, but I think we're a little too different.

**23. Who is your worst mundane enemy? Describe them and why you don't get along.**

Eh. I have many. No comment.

**24. Do you have any pets? Do you want any pets? What kind?**

I had fish…once…it didn't work out.

**25. What don't you like about yourself? **

I sort of jump into things, or say things, without thinking about it.

**26. How would you like to look?**

Tall. Ripped. You know.

**27. Would you consider yourself straight, gay, bi, or something else? Why?**

Straight…cuz I am…

**28. Who was the first person you had sex with? When did it happen? What was it like? How well did it go?**

I'm 15. Well, I know that means squat to some people, so…I haven't had sex ever. Because I'm Kid Flash and that would be bad.

**29. What is your deepest, most well-hidden sexual fantasy? Would you ever try it?**

BATMAN IS GOING TO BE READING THIS, PEOPLE. WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS ARE THESE?

**30. What was the wildest thing you've ever done, sexually? Who was it with and when did it happen?**

I pecked my girlfriend on the cheek once. Oooo. (that was a joke, aka. I've-well, never mind.)

**31. Is there any sexual activity that you enjoy and/or practice regularly that can be considered non-standard? (Bondage, Fantasy Play, etc.) Why do you like it?**

Again. Kid Flash here.

**32. Do you currently have a lover? What is their name, and what is your relationship like? What are they like? Why are you attracted to them? **

Why as a matter of fact I do, actually. Her name is Rosalina Phillipa Tina Linda Flondoro and we're sole mates. We currently have 17 children and happily live on the private island of Australia. What do you think, stupid?

**33. How old were you when you first got drunk? What was the experience like?**

Who do you think I am? I'm Kid Flash! There's _no way _I'd _ever _admit to getting drunk.

I plead the fifth.

**34. Did anything good come out of it? Did anything bad come out of it?**

Again, Batman is probably reading this.

**35. Do you drink on any kind of regular basis?**

I'm underage.

**36. What kind of alcohol do you prefer?**

Really whatever's…I mean, I don't drink. Never have, never will.

**37. Have you ever tried any other kind of "mood altering" substance? Which one(s)? What did you think of each?**

Alright. I'm not doing drugs, either, especially after what happened to-

Again. I plead the fifth. Right to remain silent and all that.

**38. What do you think of drugs and alcohol? Are there any people should not do? Why or why not?**

Alright. Here we go. As Kid Flash, I know about the temptations that are out there, blah blah blah, speech, speech, speech, drugs and alcohol are bad.

**39. Is it okay for you to cry? When was the last time you cried?**

Kid Flash doesn't cry.

**40. When did you go through whatever made you supernatural? What was it like (in your opinion)?**

As in becoming Kid Flash? When I was thirteen, I got covered in lightening-charged chemicals. It was really confusing, at the time…

**41. What do you think now of being supernatural? Is it cool, or have you been screwed?**

Are you kidding me? Being Kid Flash in the best.

**42. Do you have a mentor? Who are they? How did you become their student?**

Yes. His name is Barry Allen. He's the Flash. I met him when he was going out with my aunt. Now he's my uncle-by-marriage. One day "the Flash" (before I met him) met with little me (I was so excited) and answered a couple of my questions as to how he became the Flash. He showed me, in came the lightening, voila.

**43. Do you have any magical items? Where did you get them?**

Magic is STUPID and DOESN'T EXIST! If you mean Dr. Fate's helmet, he gave it to me. Obviously.

**44. What is something you had to learn during your training that you hated? Why did you hate it?**

My training. I hate guns. Didn't used to have an opinion on them, but now I hate them. They kill people.

**45. What is your current long term goal?**

Get faster.

**46. What is your current short term goal?**

Date Miss M- I mean, girls. Why did I have to write in pen?

**47. Do you have any bad habits? If so, what are they, and do you plan to get rid of them?**

I tend to trip over things when I try to slow down. Zero to six hundred in half a second, no problem. Six hundred to zero? Not so much. I need to work on decelerating.

**48. If you were a mundane person, what would you do with your life? What occupation would you want, and how would you spend all your time?**

If I didn't have powers? I'd want to be a scientist. Work with NASA, maybe.

**49. If you were to gain an obscenely large sum of money (via an inhertiance, a lawsuit, a lottery, or anything else) what would you do with it?**

I don't know. Buy a mansion. Have lots of girlfriends. Things like that.

**50. What would you wish for if you found a genie?**

For Robin to trust me.

_Wally put down his pen and looked over his answers. Was he- nah. The questions were so random and ridiculous that his answers were surely justifiable. He stood up and decided to raid the freezer for ice cream, his original purpose for coming to his aunt's house before he got distracted. Seriously, there was no way the Justice League had to answer that crap. Batman was probably just having fun with them. _

_He froze as the thought dawned on him. Batman was having fun with them. _

_This was either great or terrible. _

_On one hand, Batman knew the definition of fun. Who would have thought? On the other, the Justice League was clearly being led by a sociopath. _

_Sadistic heroes aside, Wally's respect for the dark knight had just doubled. _


	21. Never Forget Your Handy Atlantean

A/N: First and foremost, thank you to all the reviewers. You guys are awesome. On the topic of reviews, please state your opinion on this chapter- I'm not sure if I like it or not, and I'd really like some help. Thanks!

This one took longer to write (pesky normal life getting in the way) but it is long, too, so hopefully that will make up for it. I'm sorry if I use incorrect terminology. Anyways, this one stars Kaldur- and Wally too, of course- tag to episode "Downtime." Originally, I had an idea to do an epic battle scene, where some villian attempts to suffocate Aqualad by covering his gills and Kid would sacrifice his rebreather until Aquaman arrived, but it ended up being too long, so now KF uses his powers this way. As always, I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: They had everything here, except singing crabs. **

* * *

The more he thought about, the more he was starting to think this was a bad idea. First of all, he was "borrowing" one of Robin's rebreathers with only a vague hope that he was doing it right, and second of all, he really hoped his communicator worked underwater. He'd forgotten to pack a plastic bag to keep it from getting wet.

Third of all, as the rebreather was taking up his entire mouth, there was no way he'd be able to talk, and he'd forgotten to bring something to write on.

Fourth of all, he'd forgotten to tell Kaldur he was visiting- if by "forgotten" he meant having decided this two minutes ago. What if it was a bad time? What if Kaldur wasn't even there?

Nonsense. It was a Saturday in September. What else would he be doing?

Oh, man, What if it was some sacred Atlantean holiday or something? Bad idea, bad idea, abort, abort, abort-

"_Recognized. Kid Fla-"_

He couldn't quite make out the rest of it as the air surrounding him turned to water. His eyes widened as he quickly turned his goggles to their underwater function, and he whirled his arms around, trying to remain upright as a sense of weightlessness set in. When his goggles adjusted, his eyes widened and he had to remember not to gasp.

Kaldur lived _here?_

He usually didn't say things like this- but it was beautiful. A concrete-type hallway with complicated statues of merpeople quickly changed into an open walkway with bright blue lamps defining the path. Small aquatic plants already lined the cracks, constantly waving in a nonexistent breeze, and further out he could see larger ones, the size of trees, blowing back and forth. He could vaguely make out the whole dome that defined the city, and even though he knew the dome kept the water pressure light enough that he wouldn't be crushed, he suddenly felt very uneasy, anyways.

Sounds where different underwater that they were in the air, but even through the muffled _swooshing _sound that came every time he turned his head, he could have sworn he heard giggling.

Uh-oh. People were coming around the corner. If he was going to leave, he had to do so, now.

He occupied himself with looking at a sculpture of a merman holding a trident and did nothing.

A pair of- well, they looking like teenagers- tumbled out into Wally's view. A girl with short red hair and a skimpy outfit was swimming backwards, laughing, as a boy with black hair and a dark blue outfit that loosely resembled Kaldur's chased her, grabbing onto her ankle with his hand. Kid Flash exhaled, letting out a stream of bubbles through the rebreather, and both of them froze, slowly turning their heads towards him.

Well, situation awkward times just about a thousand. Kid guiltily smiled at them, raising a hand in greeting.

When they started to talk, he had no idea what they were saying.

Crap. He hadn't thought of what would happen if they didn't speak English.

* * *

"Is… that a-"

"It has to be a surface dweller!" Tula exclaimed, looking eagerly from the boy to Garth. "I wonder what he's doing here?"

"We need to get the king," Garth said, wondering in the back of his mind how she could be so excited about this. "We do not know if he's friendly."

"Well, of course he is friendly, just look at him. Haven't you been working on your surface studies? Do you think you can speak to him?"

The "him" in question was wearing a bright red-and-yellow jumpsuit with an electric bolt emblem on his chest, along with a red pair of eyepieces that masked most of his face. The only parts of him that were visible were the skin below his nose and the top of his head, which was covered in short, red hair even brighter than Tula's. Garth had the distant feeling that he should recognize the boy, although for the life of him he couldn't remember why.

"My surface-speak is far from fluent," he protested, grabbing Tula's arm to restrain her from getting any farther from him, "And, besides, that would not be the appropriate protocol."

She jerked her arm back out of his grip, her bright blue eyes glinting dangerously. "Well, then, what would be appropriate protocol? Interrupting the king himself?"

Garth hesitated, before answering, "I do not know. Kaldur would. Perhaps we can-"

The surface-dweller jumped, clumsily swimming over to them, making wild hand gestures.

Tula gasped in surprise. "Maybe he understands a bit of Atlantean!" she guessed, and started speaking slowly. "Do-you-want-to-see-the-king?"

Garth sighed as the boy took on a blank expression again. "That I doubt," he said, finally placing the boy in his mind. "Kaldur'ahm?" he asked slowly. As anticipating, the boy smiled again, nodding quickly. He turned back to Tula. "This must be one of Kaldur's teammates."

"Kaldur's teammates?" she repeated, her eyes glancing back at the boy, who appeared to be trying to follow their conversation. Garth thought he could detect a bit of jealousy in Tula's voice. "Why doesn't he speak and tell us so?"

"Perhaps he cannot," Garth shrugged, looking over his shoulder to the boy as well. He did not understand how the other received oxygen, but a small stream of bubbles frequently escaped his lips, so he must have a method. Sighing, he swam a length forward and started to speak slowly, in his best surface-speak., making hand gestures as he did so. "We take you…at Kaldur'ahm."

The boy paused, before nodding again and grabbing Garth's hand, moving it up and down a few times while he brought the other up to his chest. Then he turned to Tula and bent over, doing a sort of somersault with his legs fully extended, before straightening up again.

"What's he doing?" Tula whispered.

"I know not," Garth whispered back. "Come," he said in surface speak, indicating the way, watching as the land dweller did an awkward but effective swimming method resembling a frog.

Kaldur would know what to do.

* * *

"Kaldur? Kaldur!" the girl called, grabbing hold of a doorframe. Of course, it wasn't even a doorframe, because there wasn't a door inside it. Kid Flash had seen actual doors back where they had been swimming, but in the current area, there were only curtains of seaweed. He supposed this had something to do with water flow, but it probably made privacy difficult.

He sighed in relief as he heard Kaldur's voice answer, letting out more bubbles. The bubble effect was like standing outside in the cold- you could see your breath. Not anything special, unless you were a hyperactive teenager. Then it was constant amusement.

Kaldur brushed aside the piece of seaweed as he swam through the entrance, his eyes traveling over the two others before they landed on KF. "Kid?" he asked, his voice immediately filling with surprise and concern. To Kid's relief, he started speaking English, good English, unlike the other guy's. "What's the problem? Is there an emergency? I had my communicator…"

His voice faded away as Kid Flash shook his head, made gestures to himself, and then a waving motion with his hand, which sent him edging back in the water. He had to work to move forward into his original position without overcompensating.

"You wanted to say hi," Kaldur translated dubiously. Kid Flash beamed and tapped his nose, until he saw a confused expression on Kaldur's face and quickly switched to a thumbs-up.

He waited while Kaldur turned back to the other two kids started to speak Atlantean, hopefully something about how his friend was here for a visit and not this idiot really has no purpose for being here. When he saw the other two teenagers relax, and the girl smiled at him again, he took it as a good sign.

"Wally," Kaldur said, addressing his friend again. He had a small smile on his face. "Forgive me for jumping to conclusions earlier. Your visit in unexpected, but welcome. My friends and I would like to give you a tour of Atlantis."

Wally's face lit up, and he immediately swam over to Kaldur, bumped into him, threw one arm around his shoulders, patted his back below his water-pack thing, and used Kaldur as a rock to push himself away from. Wally glided five feet in the water; Kaldur barely moved.

This was going to be fun.

"What was that?" Tula asked, watching as the surface-dweller struggled to find a position right side up without moving too much.

"Uh," Kaldur said, looking from Wally to his friends.

"He made other signals towards us earlier," Garth added. "Perhaps you could explain? He grabbed my hand and moved it about, and then he somersaulted in front of Tula."

Luckily, he could picture Wally's actions fairly easily in his head and knew what he was trying to do. "The first one is known as a handshake," he said, repeating the action to Garth the proper way. "It is a surface greeting of respect, often performed when meeting someone for the first time. The other, I believe, was my friend's attempt at a bow." He again performed the action the way Wally probably meant for it to come out. "It is…a…" he thought quickly for something other that 'Wally's way of saying he finds you attractive-' "another greeting of respect towards women." Ah, what the heck. Hopefully they'd never find out, anyways. "My friend's greeting towards me is a more informal communication of…" friendship? Thankfulness? How does one describe Wally?

"Brothership," Garth interrupted Kaldur's thought, in English. The surface dweller smiled again, bringing his hands together a few times, then moved one arm back and forth between himself and Kaldur, while pointing the other at Garth and made a fist with the thumb sticking upwards, which he assumed, based on earlier, was a gestured of affirmation.

Kaldur looked at him in surprise, both at the surface-speak and the word he had chosen. Garth finally felt a bit of Tula's earlier jealousy sinking in. He knew what he said was true, that they acted as brothers. He could tell, not just by the way the surface dweller became completely at ease when Kaldur greeted him, but also by Kaldur's small smiles of amusement at his friend's flamboyant actions. It took a lot to earn Kaldur's smiles. Garth never regretted his past actions, but did regret losing his friendship with Kaldur. It hurt a little to see it replaced so easily.

"Brotherhood," Kaldur finally corrected, and then repeated it in Atlantean for Tula's benefit. "Yes, in a way, I suppose. My colleague is a very friendly person; things are different up on the surface. Oh, introductions. Forgive me. Garth, Tula, this is Kid Flash."

Wally, who seemed to be following along (he probably recognized his name), tapped Kaldur's shoulder and made a W with his fingers. Kaldur nodded to him and nodded, "his name is Wally. He is Kid Flash and Wally like I am Aqualad and Kaldur," he added, just to clear up any confusion.

He turned to Wally. "Wally, this is Tula and Garth. They are old friends of mine."

Wally smiled eagerly, turning towards the two of them. He made a lot of quick hand gestures, tapping on his chest, gesturing to Kaldur, the two of them, himself, and then pantomiming a hug.

"What does he mean? Can you actually understand all that?" Tula asked curiously.

He decided it give it his best shot. "Any friends of mine are friends of his," he said. "I think. It's a common expression on the surface." He tapped Wally's shoulder and gestured back down the hall. "Shall we get started?"

* * *

It was strange how quickly the surface creature could make her feel alienated in the presence of her two best friends. Of course, he was one of Kaldur's teammates back on the surface, so it made sense that they would be close. Garth, who'd always been more interested in the surface out of the two of them, kept sticking close to the land-boy, trying to study, judge, and learn from him. Moreover, even with his limited knowledge of surface speak at the boy's apparent inability to, the two seemed to get along fine.

For some reason, she had the feeling Kaldur was trying to keep her and the boy away from each other, but she dismissed it, deciding that whatever Kaldur was doing, he had the best of intentions in mind.

Did he still have _her _in mind?

She wasn't, would never, regret choosing Garth. He was perfect for her, she valued the time she spent with him more than all the pearls in the sea, but…in the back of her mind, she still wondered… at the depth of Kaldur's true emotions for her.

At his original revealing of his plan to sacrifice being Aqualad for her, she hadn't thought much of it at the time. She'd been more worried about her own confession, and then, of course, the attack on Atlantis. While she knew of the existence and importance of Aquaman and Aqualad on the surface, that had somehow seemed far away, insignificant. She hadn't known that Kaldur had made bonds of friendship so strong that it would be considered brotherhood. Yet here it was, evidence in the flesh, that a surface-dweller would visit Atlantis just to spend time with his friend…how much else had Kaldur established on the surface? It couldn't just be a military base for Kaldur. It must have been his second home.

And he'd been willing to give all of that up for her.

"Coming, Tula?"

She looked up from her thoughts. Despite the slow pace they were taking for the surface dweller's benefit, she had still managed to drag behind. "Coming," she answered Garth, giving a few solid kicks to catch up with the rest of them.

It was normal to feel a bit overwhelmed in situations like this, wasn't it?

* * *

It was more of a reflex than a decision. As they passed from one chamber to another, (the concept of inside and outside was different underwater) Wally could see a small statue tumble from the fingers of a small, slightly pudgy girl. Getting over there superfast was an impulse. Hey, he could still vibrate his molecules at an exponential rate, so super speed still worked underwater. He wasn't nearly as fast, but it still worked.

He caught the sculpture- he couldn't tell what the white material was, it wasn't marble- with ease, and looked up, trying to swim upright again. Unfortunately, that wasn't so easy. If he had trouble decelerating from running, swimming was about a hundred times harder.

Garth blinked. One second, he had been glancing above the surface-dweller's head to catch Kaldur's eye, grinning at a joke he had made. The next, the surface dweller was gone, and Kaldur was looking in a distant direction in front of them with a grimace on his face.

Garth followed his gaze. The surface dweller, in his flamboyant outfit, was easily to spot. Garth's jaw dropped a little. How had he managed to get way over there? Wally, as he was known, was bouncing around the domed ceiling like a shell in the surf, waving his arms wildly in between trying to get a grip on the surface. Next to him, he could hear Kaldur sigh and mutter, "I shall handle this," and swim up to the ceiling, probably to get his teammates down.

He was barely listening as Topo, the best artist of their generation, came up to him and started rambling nervously. "Garth! What's going on? A yellow blur grabbed one of my coral statues I dropped before it could break. What is it?"

"That is Kid Flash of the surface world," he answered. Tula's hand gripped his arm, probably wondering the same thing. "Kaldur will explain."

"His powers are of movement, yes?" Tula asked, her eyes widening as she watched Kaldur seemingly catch Wally in mid bounce and try to steady him.

"I believe so," Garth answered, ignoring Topo's gasp as he put all the pieces together.

"That must be how he got there so fast," Tula rationalized, narrowing her eyes against the light so she could see the two better, who where swimming downwards. "Look, he has your statue."

For a nonverbal person, Wally certainly did make a fuss first over Topo and his tentacles -if those wiggly fingers did mean tentacles and not gills. Wally had done the same signal on the sides of his neck earlier to mean gills, according to Kaldur. He then spent another twenty minutes examining Topo's coral art (poor Topo was so nervous it would break) before Kaldur declared, "Now might be the best time to conclude your visit, Wally," in surface speak, which Garth found that he could understand most of.

Wally nodded, patted his mouth with his hand a few times, shook Topo's hand, bowed to Tula again, and punched Garth lightly on the arm, smiling at him. Garth smiled uncertainly back, hoping it was another gesture of friendship (the surface seemed to have a plethora of them), and decided to answer with his own gesture back, brining his fist to his forehead in a way he wouldn't normally greet another boy his age, decided it would be exactly was Wally Kid Flash needed.

In return, Wally beamed at him and made a similar signal back. It was almost perfect, if only it had a little less movement and he curled his hand into a fist instead of leaving in back. Next to them, Kaldur shook his head, trying not to laugh, before finally tapping Wally's shoulder and leading the way back to the portal.

By no means was Garth happy that his best friend was barely in Atlantis anymore. He often missed Kaldur's sensible way to thinking and his ability to catch all of his subtle jokes. However, if he was to be replaced by surface dwellers, he was glad to have been able to meet one of them to put his mind at ease. Kaldur had been accepted as a brother to these people. He deserved nothing less.

* * *

Tula had seemed distant- and apparently off limits, by Kal's body language- but Garth was pretty cool, from the impression that Wally could gather from his expressions and broken English. That squid person had been a little creepy, but his art had been fantastic. Wally vaguely wondered if he used his tentacles to help him build stuff.

"-_Kid Flash. B zero three."_

The portal had dried him off a little bit, so he was damp but not soaking wet when he emerged in Mount Justice. He popped the rebreather out of his mouth- souvenir? - as Kaldur stepped out of the portal behind him. It took a few tries to remember how to work his voice again, but as soon as he did, he started to talk.

"Dude. That was the sweetest place I've been to, like, ever! I can't believe it! Why do you choose to spend your time up here? Well, we're lucky to have you, anyways. I hope that didn't cause too much of a commotion. I noticed the people staring as we swam by, and it wasn't because of my looks. Probably yours, bro. Garth- that was his name, right? I don't want to say it wrong- he was hilarious. You hang out a lot?"

Kaldur interrupted right there before Wally could really get into it. "Thank you," he said, standing up straight and observing the hall. No one else was in the main room. "The people know I am Aqualad- I have made a spectacle of myself before this, believe me. Garth enjoyed your company as well. He's one of my closest friends."

Wally nodded and grabbed his goggles, raising them to reveal dull eyes. "That's lucky I ran into him, then. I'm so starved. Wanna go grab a snack?"

"Actually, I have things I must complete at home. You visit was a welcome interruption, and I'm glad you enjoyed Atlantis, but I really must finish. Shall we complete the conversation another time?"

Wally was nodding when a third voice echoed from down the hall. "FINALLY, YOU'RE BACK, YOU FREAKIN' KLEPTOMANIAC!"

Kaldur chuckled at the look on Wally face. He wouldn't want to deal with an angry Robin, either. "Good luck," he said, quickly tapping in his location in the transporter.


	22. One Kid's Enough

A/N: This one's on the shorter side, less of a laugh-out-loud chapter and more of a chuckle-quietly-to-yourself-because-Wally's-an-adorable-goofball chapter. Anyways, this came from a suggestion by Zeraphie, and I can only hope I did it justice. Speaking of justice, _YJ _I do not own.

Quick question: Do you guys mind all the Barry/Wally family things I've been doing? I was considering doing a fluffy chapter between the two of them next, but I don't want to overdo it. I know I've done a lot of them recently.

**Summary: 15 is not to old to be a kid. (No pun intended.)**

**

* * *

**

It started out as an innocent situation. Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris had come over for dinner one night, just because, and his father was lightly joking about how he hoped there was enough food in the house to complete an actual meal, with a pointed stare at Wally. Aunt Iris had laughed while Uncle Barry just said, "Teenagers," with a wink in Wally's direction.

His mother wiggled a finger in her sister and brother in-law's general direction and said, "Don't laugh, you'll be next." Both of their faces melted into a kind of alarmed expression while Wally froze in a kind of shock. He brushed it off until dinner was over, and after bugging Uncle Barry about when their next patrol would be ("No, I don't have to go to school tomorrow, honest!") disappeared upstairs to his room again, like teenagers were prone to do.

It was there that the thoughts caught up to him. Really, when your brain moves at super speed, it's hard not to think about something.

Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris having kids. Oh, gosh.

For the life of him, he couldn't understand why the idea bothered him so much. They were plenty old enough, but not too old, to have a baby. They'd be great parents, Wally was sure. He should know better than anyone, with the amount of times he'd slept at their house, shared their meals, fed their fish, helped with chores to get Uncle Barry out of the house faster, applied and received first aid, had a silly amount of arguments, gotten grounded by them…

It was probably because having a baby around would distract Flash from his work. That's what Wally was worried about, nothing else. There's no way he was ready to protect Central City on his own, and if the horror stories he'd heard about newborns were true, then that's what he'd have to do. There was no way Uncle Barry could be a father, civilian, and superhero at the same time. It was just too much for one person.

So no, he wasn't opposed to the idea of a baby at all. Having a little cousin would probably be fun. It's just Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris didn't need one. Besides, if they really wanted a kid that much, they could go to him, right? He was Kid Flash to Uncle Barry's Flash, for pete's sake! _Kid _Flash! As far as the public was concerned, he could be Flash's son, or the closest thing to it. Well, when he'd been picking out the name, he'd been going more for Kid-sized-Flash, but Kid-of-Flash worked just as well.

They saw him enough, didn't they? He saw Aunt Iris once a week at the very least, and Uncle Barry almost every day. He could feel guilt welling up in his chest. Had he been spending too much time with Young Justice? Did they just miss him so much that they wanted another kid around, to take his place?

He took some deep breaths and ran downstairs to grab a snack. He was just overanalyzing things. Besides, not that Wally made a point to talk about it that often, but Uncle Barry wasn't even sure he _could _have kids, seeing as he was not-quite-human anymore. So he had nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

Wally pulled out a bag of chips and rushed to the living room. He found the perfect spot - a space of about three inches between Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris - and sat down, wriggling to create more space between their legs, for once being glad he was as skinny as they come. He ignored the looks on their faces as he popped some chips into his mouth and said, "So, what are you talking about?"

Of course they didn't need a kid. They had him. He'd be perfectly happy to fill the role. He practically already was. The closest thing possible, anyways. For all intents and purposes, he was their son.

He hoped they thought so, too.


	23. Babies

A/N: After debating between posting this chapter and a funnier one, this won. I decided to stick with the little mentor/bonding theme I've got going. Warning: This is probably a little fluffier than necessary. I do not own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: Looking back on this, Flash supposed he might have overreacted. **

**

* * *

**

Contrary to appearances, Wally had never been stupid. Lazy, yes. Stupid, no. He was actually a little more intelligent than average, although he rarely worked to his full potential in school, as numerous teachers had commented over the years. He was content in classes above standard but below honors.

After he got his powers, his IQ seemed to jump by a lot. It appeared his thoughts could now move at super-speed as well, meaning that he could understand most everything taught to him pretty quickly. Barry Allen was torn between being excited and scared at this prospect. On one hand, his thirteen-year-old nephew could explain to the letter the physics behind running on walls and why it was possible. On the other, he could figure out how to fool adults into thinking he was eighteen and make chocolate milkshakes on the go _everywhere he went_, so he was constantly on a sugar high. Thank goodness he didn't have any interest in computers.

So, being as smart as he was, Barry was sure that Wally knew that Central City hadn't quite accepted Kid Flash yet.

Sidekicks were a relatively knew thing, first of all, so that made it hard. Batman had been the groundbreaker with Robin. But then again, Gotham was such a messed-up place that no one had raised an eyebrow. He'd heard that Aquaman had one now, Aqualad, but as they spent most of their time underwater nobody really knew about them that much anyways. Green Arrow had talked about his fellow archer, one that he had yet to meet. Flash didn't really like the idea of the guy that much. Come on, you don't name an archer _Speedy. _It just made things confusing. Kid Flash was the next sidekick in line.

It helped that Iris worked in the paper, and could smooth things out there. After the first couple of times, the people seemed to realize that Kid Flash wasn't a super villain or evil clone and stopped screaming when they saw him. After the next, he could make basic demands of people ("Which way did he go? Where's Flash? MOVE!") and get a response. Still, he was treated with general suspiciousness everywhere he went, and people were constantly second-guessing him. That wasn't really good for a superhero if they were to do their job well. Barry knew that.

"How old is Kid Flash?"

"Do you ever worry about his competency? Is that why he's not with you?"

"Should he really be out on the streets?"

"What makes him qualified to give orders to the police?"

Flash sighed, ignoring the reporters as he handed Trickster to the police, giving one last looked to make sure he was still unconscious. Satisfied, he turned around and raced to the other, poorer side of town to meet Kid Flash, hopefully where'd he left him. _He'd better have waited for me. If he's gone…oh, no. _

He'd sent Wally on ahead of him to the shabby apartment buildings because one, he'd wanted to deal with Trickster on his own, and two, there was a serious gas leak in the building that, according to his calculations, would cause an explosion in about five hours. Kid Flash was supposed to go in and try to explain that to the owner, and try to evacuate everyone.

As soon as he rounded the block a few streets away, he could see it. The building was on fire. Perfect.

It looked like most of the people- about 200 of them- were already outside, staring up in shock as their home went up in flames. Flash sped over to the edge of the crowd. "Is anyone stuck inside? Where's the fire department?"

He waited while the nearest people either exclaimed, "Flash!" or went dumbstruck at the sight of him. Yes, people, he was the Flash. He'd been around a while now, get used to it. "Has anyone even _called_ the fire department?" he asked hopefully.

Then he had ten people babbling to him at once. Great. He managed to work out that yes, the fire department should be on their way, and Kid Flash had shepherded most of them out. In fact, he was getting the last ones out now.

Wait. Kid was still in there? Geez, what was he, crazy? The building was unstable. It could blow any second!

He heard shouting from the front of the crowd and made his way over as fast he as could. He could see Kid dropping some elderly people on the ground, and had his mouth open to reprimand him when someone else caught his attention first.

"My baby! She's still in there!" a woman screamed

Kid Flash nodded and said something back that Flash didn't catch because he was too far away. As he turned away, Kid saw Flash speeding towards him, smiled at him, and zipped into the building a yellow blur.

Flash stopped in front of the entrance and yelled, "Kid! Get back here!" but it was too late. He felt the heat of the fire, the hand of the mother grabbing his arm, and watched in horror as the fire reacted with the gas leak, turning the whole building blue for a second before it exploded.

"_WALLY!"_

His heart froze as he screamed, but over the noise, no one seemed to hear. It was the screams of the civilians that reminded him to go into super speed. Everything froze in place around him. The inside of the building was already a ball of fire. Feeling sick to his stomach, Flash caught a section of the front wall that was toppling down, pushing it back towards the oncoming wall of flame.

_Oh, God, Wally. _

The world caught up with him. As he had expected the wall both dissolved in the wall of flame and dispersed the fire so that whatever energy was left flew harmlessly in the air instead of burning them all to a crisp. He stood shock-still as the people's screaming died down, and the babbling began again. Sirens sounded as the fire department, along with some police cars and ambulances, finally rounded the corner. He waited for five seconds, ten seconds, desperately hoping for a yellow blur to whiz up to him.

He didn't come.

_Wally…no…_

He never came.

Stiffly, he turned around and started helping up all the people who had fallen, not saying a word. He ignored their questions, ignored the news van rounding the corner, ignored his hands, stinging under his gloves, and glared at the authorities as they approached him, warning them to back off.

"Hey. Hey. Where's little Flash?"

"Wasn't he in there? What happened to him?"

He lingered a second with the woman sobbing quietly about her baby.

"The Flash saved us. It's okay."

"Where'd Kid Flash go, Momma?"

"Shhhhh. Quiet down, sweetheart."

"But Momma, where'd he go? Why isn't he here? He carried me out."

His heart twisted venomously inside his chest as hushed whispered sped through the crowd of people and observers. _Kid Flash. Kid Flash is dead. Poor Kid. Look at Flash…_

He didn't respond to any of it. How could he, when his own brain couldn't even figure out what to do? Part of him wanted to scream, part of him wanted to run around the world and never stop until he found Wally, part of him wanted to start crying, part of him wanted to somehow trade his life for Wally's, because he _can't be dead, he shouldn't have died, he was just a boy, damn it! He was my nephew! My family! I should have protected him. I never should have let him become Kid Flash. I should have stopped him. I should have been faster. Wally…Wally…he can't be dead…he can't be dead…Wally…oh, God, Wally…no…no…_

"Flash."

He jerked out of his trance, looking to the man next to him. Some part of his mind recognized him as the chief of the fire department.

"What happened?"

He started blankly at the man for a few seconds before registering that he said something, recognizing the words, and trying to make his voice work again. "Explosion," he answered hoarsely, gesturing to the building behind him. The man's face turned to an expression he didn't want to recognize, so he continued, trying to avoid it at all costs. "Gas leak," he continued, not meeting the man's eyes and extremely glad that his own were hidden. "Fire."

"Is it…what's the situation about Kid Flash?"

"_Shut up."_

"I…I'm so…"

"My baby!"

Flash's head jerked up, grateful for a distraction, any distraction at all. That had sounded like the same woman. Wait. Her baby. It'd had been in the fire, too, along with…

He turned his head.

Yellow.

In less than half a second, there was a squirming figure in his arms and a whining voice in his ear, and he'd never been happier in his entire life.

"Flash! Geez, put me down already! This is _so_ embarrassing. What happened to you? All right, how about you just let my feet on the ground? Please? Come on, I'm thirteen. Stop squeezing, you're going to hurt the baby."

Flash found he couldn't stop beaming, even as he set Wally back on the ground. "You're alive," he whispered, keeping a hand on Wally's shoulder. Through his goggles, his nephew rolled his eyes. Then, he realized, "Wait. Baby?"

Kid Flash –not Wally, there'd be time for that later- gave him a _Yeah, duh, _face, and for the first time, Flash looked down to examine the rest of his nephew. His hair and uniform was streaked with soot everywhere, both of his gloves where gone, and in his arms was a white bundle.

Oh. That baby.

"Yeah," answered Kid Flash, annoyed. "I managed to save her and get out the back before the explosion, but I had to walk back here. Didn't want her to get shaken baby syndrome or something like that."

The woman was bawling when she finally caught up to them. Flash gently removed his hand from his nephew's shoulder as Kid Flash stepped forward, ready to hand the baby girl off to her mother. What he probably didn't expect was for the woman to hug him fiercely and kiss his forehead before taking the baby, thanking him profusely. The father then stepped up to shake Kid's hand firmly and pat him on the back, speechless with tears in his eyes.

This seemed to open the floodgates for the rest of the crowd, who surged forward and started to shout thanks at him too. When the first microphone was shoved in his face, he looked back to his uncle for help, but Flash stood there silently, a smile on his face, doing nothing.

"Is it difficult being the second-youngest crime fighter in continental America?"

"Do you find it hard to live up to the Flash?"

"How do you feel about having the responsibility of saving lives?"

Flash grinned at Kid Flash's confusion. They tried to deal with the press as little as possible. However, Kid didn't seem to be too flustered or anything. In fact, he was talking to them.

"I have special gifts," he said simply, looking around at all of the people, "and I'm going to use them to protect you."

Flash felt a surge of pride flare up in his chest, unlike one he'd ever felt before. That was his boy. His name was Kid Flash. His kid.

The boy in questioned had turned away from the reporters and was walking towards him. "Can we go now?" he asked quietly, so no one else could hear. "I'm so hungry."

Flash laughed. "Sure, Kid," he answered, as they both jogged away from the scene and back home.

His kid.


	24. The One and Only List

A/N: Sorry to talk about reviews in practically every one of these, but thanks (again) and sorry I take a while and/or don't respond to all of them. I hope that's forgivable. It's just a lot of them are so great, and everything I think of think of sounds insincere in comparison. I care, I really do, and you guys are wonderful.

I'd like to consider this chapter a work-in-progress. If here's anything you think I should add to the list, tell me and I'll get on is ASAP. I'd like to see how long this could get.

It'll be a little while before another update, school things and other such nonsense. I'll be back, I promise. Disclaimer: _I do not own Young Justice. _

**Summary: Well, there's not really much to say about this one, actually...**

**

* * *

**

Usually, the day Wally could be found making lists would be the day Artemis declared her undying love and Robin decided to dye his hair pink. List making would involve organization, a skill that Wally avoided like the plague. However, he did have one list, a mental and written one, which he'd comprised only to avoid the worse alternatives.

THINGS NOT TO DO AT SUPER SPEED

1. Tripping

_When the others tripped, it was no big deal, just a little embarrassing, if anything. When Wally tripped, it was the equivalent of an eighteen-wheeler on the highway flipping over. Basically, everything in his path was destroyed with him. Loads of fun._

2. Drinking a Slushy

_Super brain freeze. Enough said. _

3. Tying Shoes

"_UNCLE BARRY!" Wally screamed, desperately trying to pull his hand back towards his body. "Help me! My finger's stuck!"_

"_Calm down, Kid," came the casual response, which made Wally even more nervous than before. As he yelled back downstairs, his voice rose another octave. Body parts were not supposed to be that color._

"_I'm serious!" he shouted. "If you don't help me soon I'll have to amputate it!"_

4. Swimming

_Like running, his could vibrate his molecules at phenomenal speeds and move super fast. Unlike running, even when you push against all the water at his velocity, you still glide a couple dozen miles at least until you stop. Plus, there had been that weird time when the water started to boil…_

5. Eating a Sloppy Joe

_As Artemis had put it, it was his normal disgusting level times a hundred. _

6. Term Papers

"_What do you mean, you can't read it? My family doesn't own a computer, that's why it's not typed. Come on. _The Lord of the Flies _is an unrealistic work of literature because- not acceptable? Little boys would not resort to cannibalism. Have you ever met one? Yes, I am aware you are male. But I'm sure you were born old. No, not detention! I'm sorry, so so sorry, I take it back, I apologize, please no. I'll have this typed by tomorrow saying how it was the best book ever written as me thesis. It that okay? Please? Please? Please?"_

7. Sleeping

_Or trying to. It turns out speed sleeping doesn't exist. _

8. Biking

_He was only a couple miles ahead of Robin when the petals completely broke off, sending Wally crashing off the side of the country road they were using. It was somewhere in New England, near Gotham City, so of course he flew into a tree and got pine needles stuck in his hair. Rob didn't stop calling him a Christmas tree for weeks. _

9. Reading (note: only a problem at extreme speeds)

"_There's no way," Wally stated crossly, "That I need glasses."_

_Aunt Iris sighed. "They're not a bad thing, Wally. Lots of people need them." _

"_No," Wally insisted. "No, no, no, no, no."_

"_There are always contacts."_

"_Aunt Iris! I'm Kid Flash! No glasses, no contacts, no vision impairments! That's not okay!"_

"_But Wally, dear," she continued to try to explain. "You have the symptoms. You can't see the words clearly, you squint, headaches-"_

"_I'm home," Uncle Barry announced, striding through the front door. He stopped to look at Iris and Wally, who looked like they were in the middle of something, as Iris was wearing her "patient" expression and Wally looked unusually grumpy. "What's up?"_

"_Wally needs reading glasses."_

"_I DO NOT."_

10. Flirting

_Situation A: There was that cute girl from his math class that he'd been totally trying to ask out for weeks. When he'd finally worked up the nerve to do it, he decided he might as well as a little super speed to get it over with quicker. The girl hadn't even noticed he was there. _

_Situation B: He wasn't invited to Robin's parties anymore. Turns out, if you can lay the moves on eight girls in one night, and they all find out, they all get mad. Huh. Middle schoolers._

11. Chewing gum

_Apparently, the rate of the gum's movement along with his already abnormally high body heat caused some sort of chemical reaction in his mouth. All he'd known at the time was that the gum suddenly tasted foul, so he swallowed hastily. It was the first and only time he'd needed CPR. On the bright side, he lost his last baby tooth. _

12. Wii

_That stupid thing could never pick up his movements. It was so slow. How dare they call it technology._

13. Jog on the beach

"_Really, Uncle Barry, I didn't mean to cause a tornado. Honest. Come on, the sandstorm didn't even last that long, it was only a couple of hours, and the League dealt with it easy. I swear, it was an accident. No, it was not because I was mad at the movie theater. Well, I am thirteen. They totally should have let me into the movie."_

14. Hiking

_Enjoying the scenery was overrated. _

15. Starting a fire

_It was supposed to be a simple camping trip. It turned out to be a race against the flames to put them out before they burned anything important. Mom was not happy. _


	25. Poor Jeffery

A/N: I'm back! Yes, this one is incredibly short, but I enjoyed it a lot. For those of you not in America, you might not understand the references. I apologize. Hope you enjoy! I do not own _YJ._

**Summary: Burger King should serve Big Macs. **

* * *

Jeffery was the kind of person who was in his late twenties and whose only accomplishment was becoming known town-wide as the Drive Through Guy. He was currently editing his list of reasons of why the 2:00 A.M shift sucked – the current #1 reason was that nobody ever came except for the occasional hobo – when he heard a voice floating up through the window.

"I want a Big Mac."

"What the fu-"

"Hey!" the voice squawked. "Young ears, here!"

Jeff looked wildly out the window, but there was no car. "Who's there?" he called cautiously.

"Down here, stupid."

He opened his window frame wider and leaned over the edge, his mouth dropping open as he recognized the figure standing beneath him. "You're Kid Flash."

"Duh," the hero in question responded, tapping a foot impatiently. "I know. I want a Big Mac."

"But," Jeff protested. He had never been the sharpest knife in the drawer. "You're a kid. You…sleep."

"I'm a teenager," Kid Flash protested hotly.

"You still need sleep."

"That's what mornings are for."

"It is morning."

"Afternoon, then. I sleep in."

"Oh." Jeff couldn't come up with a good reply for this, so instead, he asked, "But this is a drive through. Where's your car?"

Kid Flash crossed his arms. "I'm faster than a car. Hurry up, I lost a bet with Superboy. UConn won."

"Super...well, yeah." All of his logic defeated, Jeff leaned back into his window and looked at the screen. "May I take your order?"

"A Big Mac," Kid Flash repeated, annoyed. "In fact, make that a couple dozen of them."

Jeff's eyes crossed in confusion. "Sir, this is Burger King. We don't serve Big Macs."

Kid Flash stamped his foot in frustration, yelled, "Damn it!" and was gone before Jeff had the time to process what happened.

Dealing with grumpy sidekicks became the new #1 on his list.


	26. Molecular Vibration

_"Flash can vibrate his molecules right through a wall." (chuckles)_ _"When he tries it, bloody nose." _

_"Dude!"_

_~Young Justice Episode 3_

A/N: Greetings, fair readers. Now, you might be wondering a couple of things. One, why did it take me so long? I couldn't log in for the last couple days. Sorry, hopefully it's no big deal. Two, why is the above quote there? It goes with (and hopefully justifies) this chapter. This was how I originally interpreted the line. This version's a little dramatized for the purposes of the chapter, but the same idea. Did anyone else think this to, or was it just me?

I don't own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: When your mentor refuses, the answer obviously is to run to your best friend and do it anyways. **

* * *

For the life of him, Robin didn't know how he had gotten into this awful situation.

Well, that was a lie. He did. It started with a phone call. That didn't mean he had to like it.

"Robin, you've got to help me," Wally had pleaded over the phone. "Please. Please. Please. Please."

Robin sighed, casting an eye distastefully over his history books spread out in various locations on his bedroom floor. "Why would I be able to help you?" he asked, adjusting his cell phone. "In case you haven't noticed, I don't have any powers."

"But, Rob, you're smart. You know stuff."

Robin was rolled his eyes. "Wally, everybody knows 'stuff.' What makes me special?"

"Well, you know lots of stuff."

"Not about you."

"You'll learn. I trust you." There he went, making grand statements like that again, that made Robin squirm at just how open the other boy was. He tried to shrug it off. At least Wally wasn't here to try to go for a hug. Not cool.

"Why not ask Superman or something? He's probably smarter than me."

"Rob, it has to be you. Anyone else would just go run and tell Uncle Barry."

Robin sighed, refraining himself from making a 'And they would run faster than you' joke. "Let me get this straight, just to make sure I have it all. Flash told you that he didn't want you to start experimenting with molecular control, so the first thing you do is run to me to help you learn how to vibrate through walls."

Wally sounded affronted. "It wasn't the first thing I did. I threw a little bit of a fit about it first."

"Funny."

"You act like it's not true. But anyways, yeah, that's it. I hate having to be left behind because I can't vibrate through objects like he can. I need to learn."

"I'm guessing Flash didn't want you to learn because it might be dangerous?"

"Yeah, something stupid like that. So you'll help me?"

Robin could sense the beginning of a very bad, bad idea about to happen. He shrugged it off. "Of course I will, stupid. Like you'd have ever left me alone if I refused, anyways."

And that was how, the next Saturday, he ended up in some middle-of-nowhere field in Nebraska, with nobody but Wally and a wall. Robin wasn't quite sure how Wally had gotten a freestanding brick wall out here. Was he really so desperate that he was willing to run all of the bricks out one armful at a time?

Yes. And Robin knew, if there was anything he thought that would let him be a better asset to Batman, that he'd do the exact same thing. Plus time probably wasn't that much of an issue to the fastest boy alive.

Luckily, Robin had brought one of those lawn chairs; he'd guessed something like this would happen. Now he could sit back and watch as his friend jogged nervously (when he said jog, he meant he only blurred a little bit) while preparing to run through a brick wall.

Fun.

"So, um, how do you think I should approach this?" Wally asked, zipping from the wall to Robin's chair and back. At least he was in his KF uniform, although the rest –including Robin in his civvies- would be hard to explain. "I mean, what would you do?"

From behind his sunglasses, Robin raised his eyebrows. "Again, I have no idea. What does Flash do?"

Wally stopped a few feet in front of the wall, arms crossed, facing Robin. "Well, he just kinda stands there and…vibrates. Then he's vibrating so much he can basically just float through whatever's next to him."

_Real descriptive, Wally. _"Well, then…practice vibrating?"

"How?"

"Oh, I don't know. Put your right hand in," Robin started sarcastically, but looked up, surprised, when Wally actually did so. "Now pull your right hand out," he said slowly.

"Yeah," Wally said impatiently.

Robin grinned. "Now put your right hand back in."

"Where are you going with this?"

"And shake it all about!"

Kid Flash dropped his hand. "Figures a twelve year old would resort to the hokey pokey. Seriously, Rob. How?"

"_Seriously, Kid, how._ What do you mean, how?" Robin asked incredulously. "How do you normally vibrate? I thought that was how you ran."

"It's not really a conscious thing, Robin. I don't really think, _oh molecules, let's vibrate at an exponential level in order for me to move at superhuman speeds. _I start running and it just kind of happens."

"So when you talk really fast, that doesn't have anything to do with it?"

"Ha. Funny. Look at me, dying of laughter over here. What would Batman say if he knew his own protégé dared crack a joke?"

"I'm hilarious, thank you very much. Look, if the only way to get your body vibrating is to run, then just run at whatever you want to phase through."

Wally's green eyes widened as he thought about the idea. "That makes sense. Theoretically, as long as I was running fast enough, I should be able to phase through whatever's in front of me." He pulled down his goggles over his eyes. "Rob, you're a genius."

The boy smiled from his chair. "I know. Good luck."

Wally nodded back, gave him a thumbs-up, and started running far back, almost out of Robin's sight. About ten miles away, he stopped again and turned around. That should give him enough room to work up to full speed, shouldn't it? Or should he even be focusing on full speed? Darn it, he should have asked Robin this. Yes, he decided. Speed equals higher molecular vibration equals phasing through walls like Uncle Barry. Right?

Before he could think about it too much, he started running again. Running, the best feeling in the world. Faster and faster. Come on…

Robin watched as a red blur quickly came towards him on the countryside. A few miles away there was a noise Robin recognized as a sonic boom, which meant he had broken the sound barrier. And then the blur came level with him and met the wall.

_Boom. _

Robin jumped up from his seat, inhaling a breath sharply and immediately regretting it when he started to cough from the dust flooding his lungs. It took at least a minute – a minute too long – for the dust to clear from the air and he could see/breathe again. The brick wall had been demolished, and done its best to take Wally down with it.

Robin made his way over to the site as quick as he could. There were pieces of brick everywhere, from globs of them still stuck together to little halves littering the ground. White power, the remains of the mortar, stuck to his clothes whenever the wind blew it up.

A little sick to his stomach, Robin followed the stench of blood to Kid Flash. He was lying curled on his side in the middle of the mess, his face buried in his hands. The yellow front of his uniform was stained red with all the blood.

"Wally?" Robin called, leaping off a pile of bricks and kneeling next to his friend, shaking his shoulder. "Can you hear me?"

He groaned, rolling over onto his back and sitting up. "Mmph," he grunted, his hands still covering his nose. "I'm fine." His voice was muffled behind his hands.

"Fine? You are not fine. We need to get you to a hospital, stat-"

"I said I'm fine."

"Have you seen all this blood?"

Wally let out a breath. "Accelerated blood flow. It's nothing. Really."

"Liar," Robin called, reaching for Wally's hands and attempting to move them. "Let me see your face."

Wally hissed as Robin jostled one of his hands, flinching away. "Don't!"

"Let me see!"

Eventually KF finally decided that Robin wasn't going to budge on this, so he removed a hand. One still remained on the other side of his nose. He was using the base of his hand to keep the nostril shut while his fingers stayed near the bridge. It only seemed to be bleeding a little, but the blood must have kept messing something up, because Wally kept on gently nudging his nose back into position. It was gross.

"I think I broke it," Wally offered, by way of explanation.

"Broke?" Robin echoed. "You smashed it! Stop touching it, you might you're your nose worse!"

Wally glared at him, bringing his other hand back up to his face. "I have to make sure it doesn't grow back crooked. It'll be good as new in a week, tops. Stop freaking out."

"That's not normal."

Wally shrugged. "I'm not normal. I don't need to pull a Dumbledore on top of it."

_"What?"_

"You know. He had a crooked nose. Then he died."

"I repeat: _what?_ And besides, I thought you didn't like magic."

"Come on, Rob. Cultural icon. Everyone knows Harry Potter."

"Dork."

"Anyways," Wally continued, as if Robin hadn't spoken, "I think I know what I did wrong."

"You just almost bled out and you're still thinking about-"

"It's not about vibrating my molecules fast," KF continued, ignoring Robin. "In order to go through the wall, I have to become the wall. So I'll just have to run at whatever speed the wall vibrates and-"

"No," Robin declared, standing up.

Kid Flash blinked up at him in surprise. Somewhere in the back of his mind Robin noticed that his goggles, sitting up on top of his head, were cracked. "What?"

"No," Robin repeated. "We are _not _doing this again."

"Aw, come on, Rob!"

"No! And I'm going to tell Flash exactly what happened. The League was right. I shouldn't have helped you."

"Why not? I'm fine!"

"This was a bad idea. It's not going to happen."

Wally side, managing to get to his feet without removing his hands from his face. "Whatever. I'll just try without you."

"Yeah, sure," Robin retorted back. There was no way he'd ever let his friend forget this lesson. "Wally, every time you try to phase through a wall, all you're going to get is a bloody nose."


	27. I was an Oops

A/N: This chapter's pretty long. Hope you like it! I wrote this one under the assumption that Wally knew Robin's secret identity. I feel like that's definitely a possibility in the show, but as we don't know, here's just a possibility. This takes place in the few days after the Cadmus mission but before the first Young Justice meeting. I don't own _YJ. _

**Summary: Good intentions and eavesdropping don't mix well. Neither do quarters and statues. **

* * *

"Look, Kid, I want you to know this."

They were on the corner of Wally's street, sometime in the ridiculous hours of the morning. Barry knew his in-laws were sick with worry, ever since he'd accidently let slip that he didn't know where Wally was, actually, but he couldn't wait to have this conversation tomorrow morning. It was a little selfish, but that was it.

Something in his tone must have warned his nephew, because he didn't respond, just standing there, actually. Ever since the Justice League had found him and the other boys, he'd been unusually quiet. On a run home usually filled with chatter, it was quite an oddity.

"I don't approve of what you did."

Wally frowned before he apparently decided that keeping a straight face was the best way to go. Barry winced inwardly; not even an excuse. Anytime before this, he would have sworn his nephew was an open book, but tonight seemed to be the exception. He'd already misjudged Wally more times than he'd like to remember in the past twelve hours, and he didn't want to add another mistake to that list.

"And I'm going to miss you while you're off gallivanting with your own team."

Ah, there he was. Open book Wally was back. Barry watched as a look of surprise instantly took his nephew's face, slowly being replaced by a look of dawning understanding, and then finally a look of excitement as Wally burst out, "You mean we're really doing it? You'll make Young Justice a team?"

"Yup," Barry nodded, just barely managing to keep his balance as the kid leaped onto him in a hug.

"Thank you!" Wally shouted, right in his ear. "You're the best, Uncle Barry! This is going to be so awesome!"

Barry gently unattached Wally's hands from the back of his neck and watched in tired amusement as the redhead slid to the ground. He grinned belatedly- unlike him, _somebody _wouldn't be falling asleep anytime soon- as his nephew proceeded to attempt to talk his ear off. Barry set off walking down the street- somehow, Wally's chatter was worth a few extra seconds of missed sleep. It involved a lot of "cools" and "thank yous" and "you're the bests" and "I know my uniform looks really torn up, but it's actually not that bads."

"Wait," said Wally finally, stopping dead in the middle of the street. Barry sighed and turned around, looking down at the kid. "This means I'm not going to be here all the time."

Barry waved a hand dismissively. "Kid, a mission or two here or there won't be that bad, promise."

"But if I have to go do Young Justice stuff all the time-"

"It'll be like me and the Justice League. Don't worry about getting homesick."

"But Uncle Barry, you go on Justice League missions _all the time. _It's unpredictable."

"Kid, you'll still be living in Central City, just like me."

"But what if I'm gone when you need me?"

Barry stared at Kid, trying to figure out if he'd really just asked that. "What?"

"What if I'm gone and you needed me?" Wally repeated. "Uncle Barry, you've kind of gotten used to having me around, and no offense, but you're not getting any younger."

Barry stared at his nephew, open-mouthed for a few seconds, before he could get over his shock and stated, "_Go to your room."_

"But, Uncle Barry, I-"

"_Now."_

Kid Flash frowned, but seemed to think better of making excuses again (the new team thing probably still fresh in his mind) and zipped off towards the house.

Barry sighed, rubbed his temples with one hand, and made his way home himself. That could not have just happened.

* * *

"Mr. Wayne? This is Mr. Allen," Flash said slowly, trying to sound as relaxed and business-y as possible as he held the phone with one hand and drummed on the desk of his study with the other.

"One moment, please, I need to check something- alright, Barry, the line's secure. Why are you calling me at work?"

"One second…Clark? Is that you?"

"Hi, Barry. Of course you can interrupt my work. I only have to finish this story by the end of the day. Go ahead."

"Okay, good. Bruce is on the line too. Look, we need to reverse the Young Justice decision."

"Barry, what is this? You agreed to it yesterday."

"I know, I know, but-"

"Why am I here? This has nothing to do with me."

"Of course it does, Clark. Arthur's unreachable- some trench thing he's dealing with- and J'honn is off planet, so it's just us. You guys, we've made a mistake. They are not ready for this."

"This has _nothing _to do with me."

"Barry, you said yourself that they should be given the chance."

"Well, I take it back. They can't handle it. Especially if they're going to go around accusing League members...we'll just have a united Speedy situation, and they're not ready to go solo. You know that. We have to call it off."

"I've got work to do."

"You keep your butt in the phone call, Clark. _Super_boy, _Super_man. You're just as involved as Bruce and I."

"Barry, as fun as this is, what did Kid accuse you of?"

"Well, first he insinuated that I couldn't complete a mission without him, and then he suggested I was getting _old-"_

"Barry, get over it. So he's worried about you."

"Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the kryptonite this morning, didn't they, Clark?"

"You two need to stop bickering. Barry, I suggest you talk to Kid about it if it hurt your feelings that much. Otherwise, we're keeping the team together. Clark?"

"Just because some evil science firm attempts to clone me does not mean I have a sidekick or any responsibility for it."

"They did damn more then attempt, Clark. You have a 16-year-old kid on your hands, and you need to start owning up to it."

"He's a clone, Barry, a clone! Unlike you all, I was _not _planning on taking a little helper buddy."

He could practically hear the menace in Bruce's voice. "Clark, that was very disrespectful."

"But, Clark, he's still yours! If he shows up and has your powers, that makes him _your _responsibility!"

"Let me put it in a way that even you could understand, Allen. I didn't even have the sex to make this justifiable."

"Clark, neither Robin nor Kid Flash are blood related to Barry or I. Calm down."

"Look, _Supey, _I thought you were supposed to be the nice one here. At least you're talking to the right guy. I know where you're coming from."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, I do. As you so aptly put it, I myself had no intention of taking on a _little helper buddy. _You understand. Being a Meta is a tough and lonely business. I'm sure Batman, Green Arrow, and Aquaman thought about it long and hard before making to offer to their partners about joining the hero business, and all throughout their training they could have called it off and those kids could have led normal lives. I, like you, didn't really have a choice."

"Barry, you're making no sense."

He could here Bruce sigh, but he remained silent.

"Do you think I asked for a sidekick, Clark? No. All I did was show some curious kid how I became the Flash to make Iris happy. There was a trillions to one chance of Wally contracting powers like I had, but somebody out there has a sick sense of humor and suddenly I had a boy speedster on my hands. If I can deal with that, so can you."

"He's your nephew."

"Goshdarnit, Clark, he's your son."

"He's not my son."

"He's not even a real nephew! He's an in-law! Listen to me: Kid Flash was an accident. I didn't want him. Sometimes he's a pain in the neck. But I'm stuck with him. So you-"

"You…don't…"

Barry whipped around so fast it was almost painful. "_Shit_," he whispered. "Wally, Kid, get back here, stop, WALLY! I'm going to have to call you guys back. This is not good, _not good_…"

* * *

In these situations, he normally would have gone to Speedy. He was older and always had a grasp on things and was really good at understanding what was wrong with adults. However, as he'd been AWOL since that day at the fake Justice League headquarters and nobody knew where to find him, that wasn't really an option. He didn't know Aqualad that well, and he was down in Atlantis anyways. That really only left one person he could go to that wouldn't go run and tell Uncle Barry.

"Robin! _Robin!"_

The boy wonder turned back around to the dumpster, a satisfied smirk on his face. He knew it had seemed suspicious. Peering around the edge of it was Kid Flash, but in a new uniform Robin hadn't seen before. It seemed more suited to hiding, as all was completely black except for the logo on his chest.

"Kid Flash," he greeted, trotting over, but keeping a hand on his belt just in case. Kid looked like something was really wrong. "What are you doing in Gotham?"

Kid glanced down boy ways of the little alley there were in. "You're alone, right?"

Robin frowned. This was not like Kid at all. "Right. Batman's on the other side of town, we're supposed to meet up in a couple hours. Why, do you need him? What's wrong?"

KF shook his head furiously. "No, no, don't get Batman. He'll just call Flash to drag my butt back to Central City. No. I need to talk to you. Privately. Do you know a place we can go?"

Robin could feel the anticipation growing inside him. Flash had probably let something slip about the new team. Batman hadn't told him a thing, saying he'd find out later. "Yeah," he answered, "I know a place."

* * *

"Dick, seriously. Drastic action must be taken!"

This was _brilliant. _

"Stop laughing at me!"

If anything, Robin snickered harder. "You were an _oops?"_

"It's not funny!"

"And now you're all self conscious because _he doesn't love you?"_

"Shut up!" Wally shouted, his voice a little higher than usual.

"Oh my god, KF," Robin gasped. He'd taken them to a wooded area outside of Gotham. Wayne Manor was just barely visible in the distance. "What's wrong with you?"

He quieted down when his friend didn't respond. "Kid?" he asked cautiously. The redhead was staring determinately at the ground.

"I don't know," Kid answered softly. His hands clenched behind his back as he continued to study the grass at his feet. "I don't know what's wrong with me. It's just – you should have heard him, Rob. He honestly doesn't want me. He only took me because he had to."

Dick felt his heart twist guiltily inside him. "KF, I didn't mean it like that. There's nothing wrong with you."

He sighed. "Thanks, I guess. If I even go back to being Kid Flash. I mean, I would, I totally would, but Flash never really wanted a sidekick in the first place."

Robin frowned. He'd thought that out of all of the heroes, the Flash would love the idea of a companion. "Really? You talked to him about it?"

"Well, no, but that's what he said."

"That's weird."

For maybe the first time that night, Wally cracked a small smile.

All right. Something had to be done, even with Wally's fragile-as-hell relationship with his mentor/self-esteem. Kid had _issues. _It was like the other extreme of himself and Batman. If he took everything Bruce said to heart…or rather, didn't say, then he'd be in a very bad position right now.

Anyways, point being, he really couldn't stand the look on his friend's face (it wasn't even an upset-sad look, it was the quiet-sad look, which was even worse because Wally was _never _quiet) and something had to be done about it. He had to help try and fix it.

"Kid," he said, making sure to make eye contact with the speedster before he continued, "You said Flash didn't have a problem with you, just with having a sidekick in general. That's good. All you have to do is show Flash how great partners are and make him _beg _you to come back."

Wally looked at him a couple seconds, before his mouth grew into a beam. "Yeah," he said, smiling wider as he took it in. "You're right. I just have to show him how great Kid Flash is!"

Robin nodded back eagerly with his own smile. This is the Kid he knew and lo- um, was kind of partial too. Batman would flip if he expressed affection while in uniform. "Right? I usually am," he replied, already starting to compile evidence in his head of the advantages to having a teenager partner. Some newspaper articles to start out with, maybe some testimonies from other JL members…

"Got it!" KF shouted, bouncing up to the balls of his feet and back down.

Robin looked up, surprised. "No way. Already?"

"Yep," he answered, his eyes shining. "Hey, do you got any quarters?"

* * *

_Wally spent the night with Robin, camped out at the back of a bank. They told the bank officials they were on a stakeout. Meanwhile, Robin somehow managed to get his hands on an obscene amount of coins. Wally decided he wouldn't question the amount of money Dick seemed willing to waste as long as the boy wonder kept helping him build. _

* * *

As Barry Allen walked through the front door, his first thought was that some crazed fan had found out his secret identity and broken into his house. His heart sank as he eyes the larger-than-life silver statue of himself, trying to figure out how long it would be before he could use his stairway again.

Then his eyes wandered over the rest of the room, and he decided that it would be completely worth it.

"KID!" he shouted, zooming forward to grab his nephew in his arms. He couldn't begin express how relieved he felt. Among other things.

"Uncle Barry," a voice growled in his ear. "You're going to break my ribs."

If anything, Barry squeezed his nephew harder. "Will it stop you from running away again?"

"Uncle Barry, I-"

"Wally, you scared the life out of me. What were you thinking?"

"I didn't-"

"Especially you! You should know better! You're not like everybody else, Wally. You could have been anywhere in the world. You could have been captured. You could have been dead! Do you have any idea what that would do to me? To your parents? To the League? To Young Justice? To the world? You're not just anybody, Wally. You carry a lot of responsibility. I expected better than this. Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

"I know-"

"No, Kid. You don't. You are so impulsive, just rushing into things without any thought to the consequences for anybody else. I should ground you from Kid Flash-"

"No!" Wally shouted.

The force of the word made Barry stop, waiting as the fading echo bounced off the walls a last few times before dying. His nephew, who'd been taking it all surprisingly quietly, suddenly looked like he'd been shocked. All of his muscles were tense, his arms outstretched as if he was bracing himself, and his eyes were stretched wide as he looked into his Uncle's face.

"No," Wall repeated, volume replaced by a degree of nervousness. "No. Please no. I mean, I know you never wanted a Kid Flash, but please. Let me prove myself. I won't go to Young Justice, if you want. I'll get faster. I know I slow you down sometimes, but I'll get better, I promise. I'll train harder. Please, you can't. Not after all the years we worked together. Not after everything we've done. You can't stop me now. I need to be Kid Flash. If you don't let me, than, I, I'll go-"

The more Wally spoke, the louder this alarm in the back of Barry's head started to ring. As it grew louder, he could hear what it said. _Speedy, _it said. _Danger. Solo. Danger. Speedy. _

Oh, no. Wally wanted to pull a Speedy.

_Danger. Runaway. Danger. Solo. Danger. Wally. Danger…_

"Is this about that phone call?" Barry interrupted desperately. Wally blinked, his eyes slowly hardening into a withering look.

"Yeah," he answered. "This did kind of start with that phone call."

"Wally, I didn't mean any of it."

"Didn't sound that way."

"I was in a bit of an argument. It was a League thing. I'm-"

"A league thing?" Wally interrupted, scowling. "And what League thing would have you talking about me? It's always a League thing, isn't it? You're so busy with them. You probably can't wait to send me off to my own mini league, can you? 'Cause you don't want me around. I mean, oh, what was it…I'm not even _a real nephew, _aren't I?"

"I was talking about blood relationships, Kid. That's all."

Wally blinked. "Blood?" he echoed. "Since when…I don't care about blood. I don't give a damn about blood. I mean… I know I sometimes overstay my welcome at your house a bit. I'm sorry. It's just…well…this is going to sound stupid. Whatever. They don't love me. They try, but they really don't. They're not good with that kind of thing. And it's hard, you know? Trying to be emotionally stable and all that when your parents aren't very good with human contact themselves. So that's why I have you. Right? And that's why you've got to keep me. Because if I don't have you I'll have nobody and I'll be an orphan. Happy? You win. I know you didn't ask for me. I'm sorry."

Barry paused. "Oh, Kid…" that was a lot for a fifteen year old to carry around.

"So I can stay being Kid Flash?"

"Wally," he corrected himself, grabbing his nephew by the wrist and dragging him forward. "Come here." Not that he gave the boy much of a choice before squeezing him with another hug. "Of course you can stay Kid Flash. If you left, I don't know what I'd do. It's hard enough just letting you go to Young Justice. I didn't mean any of it. I swear. Do you know what I was doing?"

For once, Wally didn't immediately squirm out of the hug. He looked up at his uncle's face. "Doing?"

"On the phone call," Barry clarified. "When I was saying those things. I do owe you a bit of an apology; I shouldn't have spoken about you like that. I was just trying to compare you to Superboy."

"Superboy?" Wally asked, completely perplexed. Barry chuckled.

"Yeah. You're pretty similar, you know. And like you said, I didn't know that when I took you to the lab I was going to come back with the best thing that's ever happened to the Flash. Just like Superman didn't know Superboy was coming, either. I figured that if I could get him to see Superboy like you, then he might be more accepting."

Wally finally stepped back, not meeting the adult's eyes. "Oh," he said slowly. "I guess…I kind of took things the wrong way then, didn't I?"

Barry tried not to laugh again. "Don't worry about it. Just promise not to run away again?"

Wally smiled guiltily back at him. "Promise!" he said, standing up straight. "I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. I mean, look. I made that statue!" He gestured to the large- well constructed, but obscenely large- statue of the Flash taking up must of the spare in his stairwell.

Uncle Barry walked over to it. Great workmanship, but how did he get all this silver? He looked from the statue, to his nephew, back again, and frowned. "Wally…is this made of…quarters?"

"Yes!" Wally announced cheerfully, bouncing over to his side.

Barry cast a suspicious look down at him. _Please don't have done anything illegal._ "Where did you get all these?"

Wally froze with his mouth open. He floundered for a few seconds, trying to think of something to say. "My…lemonade stand."

"You don't have a lemonade stand."

"Yes, I do."

"I would have seen it."

"Well," Wally explained, the corners of his mouth turned up, "It's in Canada."

"Canada?"

"Yeah. Lemonade's cheaper to make in Canada."

"They don't have quarters in Canada."

"Ah. Well. Then I must have exchanged my money?"

"Where?"

"You know…a…bank."

"Where?"

"Wisconsin."

"That's not on the Canadian border."

"…yes. It is."

"No. It's not."

"Well, it's up there somewhere." Wally vaguely waved his hand above his head in no real direction whatsoever.

Barry sighed, making a mental note to sign the kid up for a geography course. "The bank would have given you dollars."

"I _asked _for quarters."

"Why quarters?"

"Why not quarters? They're awesome. My favorite coin."

"Really, what happened to dimes? Wait, not important. Seriously, Wally. You could have picked a little more, you know, _practical _building material."

"Quarters _are _practical! You can spend them!"

"But then I'd have to take apart the statue."

Wally stared at his uncle for a full ten seconds, his smile spreading slowly across his face as he took in the words until he was beaming like a lightening bolt. "You're the best uncle ever," the redhead said seriously.

Barry smiled back, as big as he could. "I love you too, Kid."


	28. Guy Time

A/N: This chapter is based on a suggestion by RGZ Archer. I got the meteor joke from _The Magic School Bus. _I got the characters from _Young Justice. _That should be everything that doesn't belong to me, don't you think? Enjoy!

**Summary: Nothing says bonding like a little game of baseball with that annoying redhead that won't stop chatting you ear off and your fellow alien from outer space. **

* * *

Megan had canceled last minute, Rob was AWOL, Kaldur was busy, and no way in hell was he extending the invitation to Artemis. So it was Superboy he took with him to the baseball game.

Not that he had anything against Superboy or anything. It was just that he never spoke, and he kept on looking at Wally funny whenever he jumped up and cheered.

The game was actually incredibly boring, and the food (while delicious) was completely overpriced. So they took off during the seventh inning stretch. They took the traditional way back from Boston to Happy Harbor, going by train rather than zeta-beam, and therefore had to walk most of the way home. Not that Wally minded the exercise. He just wished that his companion would start acting more like a companion and less like a wall.

"So…" he paused in his monologue as they continued down some back street of Rhode Island. Superboy apparently knew where they were going, because Wally had no idea. "Uh…what's your favorite sport?" He was falling back on stupid topics like this because he had run out of other things to say. Besides, you can't really talk about school to a boy who'd been educated by mind controlling genetically modified…_things. _

"People usually think mine's running, you know, track and cross country and stuff, but it's really not. I mean, I love to run, and that would be what sport I'd want to play, if I was normal. I think. But I can't obviously, and I don't really like to watch it, because honestly, it's kind of boring. You know? Especially long races. You basically know who's going to win after the first couple laps. Sprints are better, but then they're too short. And you can never have a good view of the starting and the finish line. I think my favorite sport to watch is something with goals. Football, soccer, basketball, maybe lacrosse. I don't know. I wish I had more time to watch games. What about you, Supey? What's yours? To watch or play, really."

Superboy actually sent him a surprised look when he paused. Wally was vaguely wondering whether he should be offended or not when Superboy answered gruffly, "I don't know. I never have."

Wally quickly looked up to try to catch Superboy's eyes, hoping to keep up an actual semblance of a conversation as long as possible. "Never have what?" he asked. "Watched or played sports?"

Again, Superboy paused before answering, like he couldn't believe he was speaking, either. "Both," he responded.

Wally's jaw dropped. "Never had any contact with sports? No! This needs to be fixed, right now. You haven't _lived. _What do you watch on TV all week?"

Superboy gave Wally a little glare at his speech. "Megan picks the programs."

"Megan…" Wally repeated fainted. "Dude, I totally dig her and stuff, but you're a dude. You can't honestly say you watch her soaps all day."

The older boy responded with a full-out glare.

"You do," Wally said in horror. "Oh, well, we have to do something about this, right now. You just saw a baseball game, so I guess we'd got watching covered for now. You and me can play a little one-on-on. What do you want to do? Soccer, basketball…football might not work…"

"Baseball," Superboy stated.

Wally gave him another look – he'd never been the best at baseball, but it didn't matter – before saying, "You want to play baseball? Baseball it is. Look, there's a store down the road. I can buy us a ball and a bat or two, and then we'll just head to the park…"

* * *

Unlike Wally, who'd been playing the game with the neighbor kids as long as he could remember and still wasn't the best on the team, Superboy was a natural. They had a bit of a system going on that Superboy was the batting team and Wally was the fielding team, except that Superboy had soon gotten bored of running the bases over and over again just to trip over KF as soon as he reached second base, so now he just let Wally run the 300 yards or so he hit the ball and waited for him to return to the pitcher's mound so he could hit again.

Superboy, to his credit, was enjoying the game immensely. He reflected that, unlike the Martian he spent most of his time with, Wally had reflexes fast enough to keep things interesting for him. After the first couple of hits, Wally's fastballs had started to get so ridiculously fast even Superboy was having trouble keeping up with them.

It was great.

"Heeeeey, batta batta batta."

Wally had been calling out weird things like that for a while now. Superboy didn't know what they meant, other than a warning that the pitch was coming soon.

"Swing!"

Superboy's eyes locked on the ball – it was the fourth one of the evening, as two of them had gotten destroyed and they couldn't find the third one. Those were Superboy's three points. Wally, who'd given Superboy three strikes so far, had awarded himself the same score.

The ball may have been traveling close to the speed of sound at the time it connected to the aluminum bat with a _ping. _Both boys watched as it flew into the sky and gave no sign of coming down.

"You know," Wally said, glancing at Superboy's dented bat to the place the ball disappeared in the sky, "Somehow I don't think I'll be able to get that one."

Superboy shrugged. "Are there any more baseballs?"

* * *

The Man of Steel was awakened from his thought by the sound of the computer recognizing a fellow teammate. "_02: Batman." _He turned away from the huge window displaying the breathtaking view of earth to face his comrade.

"Batman, I've been meaning to-"

The Dark Knight cut him off with a glare. He turned down the hall, cape giving a slight _swish_ behind him as he turned.

"Bruce," Superman called again, knowing that would make the other stop. Batman did, glancing over his shoulder with narrowed eyes. "It's about Superboy."

Well, now he definitely had his friend's attention.

"What," Batman retorted, more of a statement than a question.

"I…" Superman paused to gather his thoughts. He knew it was a delicate subject; Batman would only become harsher towards him if he didn't phrase this just right. "I'm not sure how to handle him."

"He's not an animal, Clark," Batman growled. At the back of his mind, Superman noted the comment as ironic. If Batman were an animal, Superman would have described his friend as having hackles raised and teeth bared. He wasn't, of course, but the resemblance was striking.

"I know," the Kryptonian said quickly, "That's not what I meant." Batman seemed to relax at his words, but one never could tell. This conversation was probably a bad idea. Bruce could be so _unreasonable_ sometimes. After taking on Robin, he'd started taking every comment towards sidekicks personally. Managing the new children's team wasn't helping. "He comes to Metropolis every few weeks, you know. Helps where he can."

Batman remained silent. He took this as a good thing.

"Bruce," Superman said, using the other's first name as a sign he was being serious, "He's got his heart in the right place, I'm sure he does. But, you see, we're different. It took me years to come to terms with being from another planet. I don't think having him dive him headfirst into the crime fighting circle is-"

"That's not applicable, Clark. You are different. However, he knew he was a Krypotonian from the very beginning."

"Which was four months ago."

"He is biologically sixteen, and in retrospect, was raised in a much more emotionally stable environment than you. Correct, you had to find out about your heritage the hard way. He didn't have to face that, and in result is able to follow in your footsteps at a much younger age."

Well, there goes the postponement theory. Superman moved on to his second strategy. "Not exactly, Bruce. That's another thing. In case you hadn't noticed, he can't fly."

"He manages perfectly fine without it."

"No, he doesn't!" Superman snapped. He took a deep breath. "He doesn't have x-ray or laser vision either. And he makes rookie mistakes."

"He's sixteen and needs training."

"Well, not by me. We're too different."

"That's funny. You have identical DNA."

"This isn't a joke, Bruce."

"Trust me, Clark. I know. I know it might seem uncomfortable at first, and the fact that he doesn't have all of your powers will be frustrating. But if you get to know him-"

"Are we talking about me and Superboy here, Batman? Or you and Robin? Because that's an entirely different story. He doesn't have what it takes to-"

_Bonk._

Already on edge, the two heroes whipped around to the window. Gently floating back from the edge was a…baseball?

"Computer," Batman ordered, "Retrieve projectile."

"_Acknowledged."_

He glanced at Superman through the cowl. "We'll finish this discussion later," he declared, walking over to the retrieval bins to pick up the offending object. He meant to dismantle it just in case of a hidden bomb, but stopped when he saw lettering, hastily scribbled on the baseball in black Sharpie.

**_Property _****_of YJ _**

Superman gawked in surprise – was the Batman _smiling? _– as the dark knight turned and threw the ball in his direction. He caught it, surprised, looked down to read the words himself.

"YJ?"

"Young Justice, presumably," Batman remarked, his voice still unreadable despite the grin twitching on his lips. If Superman hadn't been so shocked, he would have wanted to take a picture. "Must have been some game." He turned again to exit down the hall he'd started to exit by before.

"What do I do with it?" Superman called, completely bewildered.

He could hear the smirk in Batman's voice. "Throw it back," he replied. He probably meant the comment sarcastically.

* * *

"Wally, duck!"

As Wally flew to the ground, he reflected that this was both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing about this was that Superboy was initiating conversation. The bad thing was that it didn't even have a point, as Superboy had shoved him out of the way anyways, not giving him time to react. Not that he should be saying anything. He was the _king _of pointless conversations.

Both of the boys grunted, Wally as he hit the ground and Superboy as he flung out an arm to catch the searing bullet. He wheeled back on impact, falling to one knee as he tried to regain his balance without dropping whatever-it-was.

Wally scrambled over to his friend. "Whoa! A meteorite! Cool!" Superboy was looking down at his catch in his hand, his face a grimace of pain. "A meteorite is an object that hits earth from space," Wally explained hastily. The expression didn't go away from his friend's face. Man, it must have hurt. "Do you know what they call an object that misses earth?"

Superboy glanced up at him, looking a little annoyed if anything.

"A meteor-_wrong!"_

Superboy snorted before he could catch himself actually laughing at one of Wally's bad jokes, ignoring Wally's beam of happiness that he could make somebody else laugh. "Look," Superboy said instead, but he felt a little better now.

Wally leaned in. "What is it?"

Superboy tossed it from one hand to another. "Guess."

Before the ball landed in his other had, he felt a gust of wind in his face as Wally snagged it out of the air. He heard "It's our- ah, hot hot hot hot hot!" before the ball was returned to his other hand, and Wally was kneeling next to him again like nothing had happened. "It's our baseball," he finished, surprised, rubbing his hands together.

"I know," said Superboy, twirling it in his hands until he could read the print. It was there, but there was something else, too. Superboy frowned, eyebrows crinkling in concentration as he read. It must have been burned on with laser vision.

"Supey, what is it?"

He turned the baseball so Wally could see it, reading the message out loud, "_Nice Hit. ~S."_

Wally's eyes widened. "Do you know what this means?"

The clone shrugged, unsure of how he felt about this. "Superman," he said slowly. He opened his mouth to comment further, but stopped when he saw Wally giving him a strange look. "What?"

"Well, yeah, I guess," Wally said, "but technically, if you discount outer space and its inhabitants, as baseball rules haven't quite covered that, and just take this as it falling out of the sky-"

"What's your point?"

"Dude, you just got yourself _out._"


	29. How To Gain A Kid Flash Part I

A/N: I'm back! Hopefully this chapter makes up for the wait. I got a request a little while ago about how Wally got his powers, so here it is. I stuck fairly close to Wally's comic book origins. Now, as both chapter 9 and 19 were part of two-shots, this will be as well, so stay tuned. On another note, I'd like to again thank all of you readers and reviewers. You make my day! (_Insert disclaimer here.)_

Oh, and so you know, not all examples are in exact chronological order. **Summary: Gaining a sidekick has never been so easy! Just follow Barry Allen's step-by-step guide on-**

* * *

**HOW TO GAIN A KID FLASH**

**Step 1: Become the Flash. **

**Example:**

"So you're the one that's been causing mayhem in the Midwest."

Flash jumped a good foot and tried his best not to gasp in surprise. Come on, he'd been at this for a good six months. He had to stop getting startled so easily. Luckily, because of the speed thing, he normally could get away with it, but he still had to start expecting the unexpected more. He looked closely into the darkness behind him, but he couldn't see a thing that would have been able to talk.

Invisibility?

"Hey, there," another voice called from far off. He glanced up, ready to run just in case it was a distraction and he was straying into a trap, but from the silhouette in the moonlight, it didn't seem like it. "Don't listen to him," the figure continued as he touched down on the ground. "He just doesn't like strangers."

Flash cocked his head. "Superman?"

Superman nodded and smiled, sticking out his hand. "A pleasure," he said. His grip was strong and decisive, much like one would expect. In the back of his mind, Flash wondered about the extent of his X-ray vision.

"Flash," he replied, shaking his hand once quickly before dropping it back to his side. "The second, in case you were wondering. Who doesn't like strangers?"

There was a whistling noise and a voice that said "Me," to his right, neither of which Flash paid very much attention to and he threw himself backwards, managing to keep on the balls of his feet as he watched a black projectile spin its way through the air where his noise had been. _Huh. So that's a batarang._

He waited for the weapon to impale itself on the wall to his left before turning his head towards its user. Batman – _the _Batman – finished taking a small step out of the shadows, remarking, "Sufficient reflexes." From his position half in the shadows, Batman seemed to be examining him just as thoroughly as Superman was. Somehow, even though Flash was pretty sure he didn't have X-ray vision, he felt more exposed. Instinctively he felt his body return to a ready-to-run position. Batman noticed. "You don't trust us," he stated, his voice a deep monotone. He paused. "Good. You're not a complete idiot."

Flash wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not, so he said nothing.

Superman frowned in Batman's direction, but before he said anything, a siren went off in the distance. Flash seemed to perk up a bit. "I believe that's the cue I've been waiting for," he said, looking from one famous hero to another. That was just about the shortest and most awkward meeting ever. When he'd decided to take up the mantle of the Flash, he hadn't anticipated this. Should he…? He quickly shook of the thought. Like Superman and Batman would need an escort out of Central City. They'd gotten in, and found him, well enough on their own. "Pleasure meeting you," he finished, before zipping off to follow the police siren.

**Step 2: Let another hero adopt a sidekick first.**

**Example A:**

"A _what?" _Flash squawked loudly.

"Bats, you can't be serious," Green Arrow quickly followed.

"A child?"

"I thought it was a joke."

"You named him Robin?"

"Like the Batman would take on a kid."

"But you can barely stand us!"

"No way."

"Come on, this is Batman we're talking about."

"A _what?" _Flash repeated, louder.

The dark knight silenced the room with a glare. Well, almost silenced. "A sidekick," he repeated darkly. "His name is Robin. He came up with it himself."

"Batman," Superman said, before the babble could start up again. He waved the Gotham newspaper in the air that had served as GL's evidence that something was up with their leader. "I can't believe you're bringing a child into this."

"I can't believe you have the patience to train a child," Wonder Woman added. "You've rarely exhibited it before. Where did he come from? Was he pre-trained? Is he human?"

"Of course he's human," Batman growled. "And his background is no concern of the League's."

"Batman," Superman repeated, "He's a child." He glanced back down at the dark picture on the front page. "You can't honestly put a, what, ten year old on the streets of Gotham, let alone send him up against sadists like the Joker that you meet up with regularly. How are you going to protect him? His safety-"

"Robin has met any assessments I have given and has proven himself capable many times over. Any qualms you have you can take up with me personally _outside of League meetings."_

Barry raised his hand like a schoolboy. "Is this permission for the rest of us to get sidekicks?"

"I still don't think-"

"Why, I never-"

"Like you could handle a-"

"The Justice Society didn't-"

"I can't believe-"

"Well, if the idea wasn't completely ridiculous, I would-"

"Children should not be-"

Superman stood up, glancing from Batman to the other handful of heroes sitting at the table. "Flash," he said. "If I may speak for myself, I'd say that you'd have your hands full just trying to find anyone that can keep up with you first."

**Example B:**

"Hello, Barry."

"Hey, Ollie. Haven't heard from you in a while. What's up?"

"Well, I wanted to ask you something, actually."

"What could the millionaire Oliver Queen possibly want from me?"

"Well, you remember how Batman's Robin, right?"

"…yes?"

"Well, I figured if Bats could have one, I definitely could, too. Right?"

"…a Robin?"

"A sidekick. Listen, I found this kid at an archery contest, and he's really good. He helped me stop this criminal. Barry, I swear, he's brilliant. His parents are dead, and he lives on this Indian reservation or something. I was thinking, I haven't told him this yet, but I was thinking of pulling a Bruce Wayne and taking him in. That way it will just seem like fashion, see, but it'll really be a great way for us to work together. He's a fantastic shot, have I mentioned that? Anyways, we were talking, and I was thinking ahead to his name. He's a faster shot than me, Barry. And you know me. So anyways, he was thinking about using Speedy as a name. And I just want to make sure you don't have it trademarked or anything."

"…Ollie, what?"

"Speedy. Have you copyrighted the name Speedy?"

"You're taking on a sidekick too?"

"Geez, Barry, for the fastest man alive, you sure catch on slow. And don't sound so horrified. It's not even as bad as Batman and mini-me. Roy's already fifteenish. That's plenty old enough to make his own decisions."

"I'm not horrified, I'm just-"

"Jealous?"

"No! Maybe. No, of course not."

"Well, it's not like there's a load of kids that can run a mile in three seconds, anyways, so don't get your hopes up. Anyways, Speedy. Can we have the name?"

**Example C:**

"Flash," a light voice called, stopping him from exiting the meeting room. The fastest man alive sighed before turning around, knowing that he was going to be even later to work now. He shouldn't have stopped for a snack in D.C.

"Wonder Woman," he called back. Diana usually wasn't one to dally, so this shouldn't take that long. Of course, that's what he'd thought about the stop for the soft pretzel, too, until the pigeons attacked. Don't ask.

"I wanted to make sure you were alright," she said, walking over to him. She continued hastily as when he opened his mouth in protest. "I have heard your reassurances, yes, but from the Watchtower the explosion looked quite…well, quite large."

"It was the middle of the Pacific," he answered quickly, "Nothing was there. Well, besides us."

"You and the boy."

"Yes. At it wasn't an explosion, just an extremely large splash. You didn't hear the story, have you?"

"The gist of it. My interest was primarily drawn to the fact that Aquaman has taken up a partner as well. I can't believe he allowed himself to go along with this ridiculous notion as well."

"Well, long story short, Aqualad popped up to the surface for Aquaman to give me a message during one of my runs across the Pacific, and I tripped, and – wait. Ridiculous? I mean, yeah. Um…ridiculous."

Wonder Woman gave him an approving look. "I'm glad you agree. From your previous comments, I thought you sympathized with letting children run wild, but-"

"Oh, trust me," Flash interrupted, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. This conversation was going very downhill, very fast. "I've learned my lesson about kids."

If he hadn't been feeling so uncomfortable already, he would have felt guilty for the way her eyes lit up at his words. "Perhaps you could tell me talk to the others, then. Child vigilantes go against what the Justice League stands for, safety and freedom to grow. The others seem blinded by the child's cuteness."

Flash's mind raced around trying to find the best way to leave the conversation without making his colleague suspicious. "Sidekicks are not what you expect them to be," he said absent-mindedly.

"Yes! I know Batman lists that as an advantage, but it's not enough to protect them from dangerous criminals they will face. They are making themselves living targets, for earth's sake. They should go through training for at least ten years before a hero even considers letting them go out. Have you met Robin? They boy's hardly even ten years old! Much too young. The level of damage and risk they face is unreasonable. Flash, are you all right? You look pale."

Flash shook his head, trying to banish his thoughts. "Oh. Nothing. Just…yeah, nothing. Training and stuff, like you said. Train them. Ten years. Look, I have to go, I'm already running late. Talk to you later, k?" With that, he was gone.

Note to self: Contact Aquaman concerning Aqualad.

**Step 3: Locate an over-eager preteen relative.**

**Example:**

"This is my brother Rudy and his family, Mary and Wally."

Rudy – must be short for Rudolph, Barry thought idly – stood up and shook his hand. Mary followed suit, her grip much lighter as she shook his hand and smiled pleasantly at him and Iris. "It's so nice to finally meet you," she said, "Iris talks about you all the time." She paused, looking back down to the couch she had just risen from. "Doesn't she, Wally?"

Barry followed her gaze to the small child sunken so low in the seat that it wasn't a wonder he'd been overlooked in the first place. He was staring intently at the screen of a handheld videogame device. Back in his day (wow, he sounded old), it took one machine bigger than that size to play one game, not the whole spectrum. He wondered about getting himself video games, but then decided he rarely had enough time to use his TV, anyways.

"Wally," Mary repeated, an agitated tone in her voice.

The little boy looked up. He had green eyes, bright green eyes, and hair several shades a brighter red that his mother's dark auburn. His blinked, his eyes no doubt adjusting to the change of focus. "What?" he piped up bluntly. "Can you repeat the question?"

His mother sighed, reaching down a hand to pull Wally up with, who sighed but closed the machine before standing up. He looked from his father, Iris, to Barry in the middle when he said, "Who's this?"

"This is-"

"My name is Barry," he interrupted, squatting down so he could be at eye level with the kid. He figured he might as well make his own first impression. "And you're Wally, right? How old are you?"

"Ten," the boy answered, raising his chin, eyes sweeping the up and down his body. "How old are you?"

"Wally!" his mother scolded, but Barry smirked to himself. "Thirty," he answered, a smile playing on his lips.

The kid's eyes widened. "Gosh, that's old. Well, not as old as-"

"_Wallace West!"_

"I mean, um, what do you like to do?"

Barry laughed to himself again. "Well, I like my job."

"Really?" He sounded curious. "What's that?"

"I'm a police scientist."

"Oh," Wally said, his voice falling. "Um…what's that?"

This time he actually did laugh out loud. "Analyzing evidence, mostly. Like CSI. It's interesting. You get to help people, solve crimes-"

"Like the Flash?"

Barry immediately decided that this kid would be his favorite nephew, right after he got around to proposing to Iris. He had to stop his smile from growing too wide. "Kind of," he said, forcing his voice to stay calm. "I've met Flash a few times, you know-"

"REALLY?"

**Step 4: Accidently almost-murder said relative.**

**Example:**

_People Who Are Going To Kill Barry Allen/Flash As Soon As They Can:_

_Barry Allen/Flash_

_Iris _

_Mary_

_Rudy_

_Bats_

_Wonder Woman_

_the entire JL_

_maybe Wally_

_Rogues (given)_

_any other villains in the world_

_me, again_

"Flash?"

Barry Allen immediately stopped contemplating suicide and shot out of his seat, hurriedly stuffing the list he'd been making to distract himself (it hadn't really been working, anyways) into one of the compartments in his gloves. "Doctor," he asked, "How is he? Is he going to be okay? Do you know what's wrong? Does he need anything?"

The doctor had probably done all of his freaking out before coming out to meet the Flash, because he seemed so calm one would think he'd dealt with panicking Superheroes all the time. In reality, Flash was pretty sure he was the only one who'd ever resorted to a public hospital. Batman would _so _kill him. "The boy appears to be fine," the doctor answered. He seemed tired, if anything. He looked down at the clipboard he was holding. "Compared with the samples you've donated, everything seems to be, well, normal. If he were a human being, he surely would have died by now, but I assume a resting heart rate of 200 is normal?"

Flash paused, his mind racing over everything that had happened this evening. Iris and Barry picking up Wally from school. Flash meeting Wally outside the lab. Wally smiling so wide Flash was afraid his mouth would fall off. Wally dragging Flash around the lab, insisting on getting everything exactly like how it was when Flash got his powers.

_I'm so stupid…_

Lightening coming through the window. Wally screaming. The lab a wreck, chemicals and glass and everything else toppled on the floor. Wally struggling against him as Flash tried to pick him up. Wally suddenly collapsing. Dressing Wally's limp body hurriedly in one of his old Flash costumes, one of the prototypes that had shrunk in the wash. Rushing now mini-Flash to the first place he could think of. Giving the doctors permission to take blood or anything else they had to do, just don't touch the cowl. Having no explanation, just repeating that there was an accident, a huge accident, double check for chemical poisoning. Being examined himself. Being forced into a waiting room with other civilians. Glaring at said civilians and retreating into a corner. Worrying his head off. Wally, super fast heart rate. Wally's samples similar to his.

_No. _

"Yes," Flash heard himself answer. "That's normal."

_No, no, no, no, no. _

"The boy is resting now. Fever, maybe, it might just be sweat. I assume the high core body temperature is also nothing to worry about. We've given him an IV, as our tests have shown his metabolism to be consuming mass amounts of energy-"

_What have I done?_

"Would you like to see him?"

"Of course," Flash answered. He followed the doctor quickly down the halls of the hospital, ignoring looks he got from passing nurses.

Wally had been given a somewhat isolated room closer to the back of the building. He was a solid figure of scarlet, as at the time Barry had been designing the costume he hadn't considered yellow gloves, boots, or a belt yet. A few square patches of suit had been torn away on his chest and arm to reveal skin. He had twisted to lie on his side, in a position that looked like he was only sleeping. An IV was indeed hooked up to his arm, as well as sensors in his chest. The noise heart monitor pulsed throughout the room at a high frequency.

_Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep-_

"So he's fine?"

"Yes, sir. He's been mostly stable, as far as we can tell. He should stay here in the hospital until he-"

"No," Flash interrupted, walking towards Wally. He rest his hand on the top of the cowl, almost able to feel the imprint of his hair on the other side. "I'd like to take him out of here as soon as possible." He carefully rolled Wally onto his back, undoing the heart sensors on his chest.

"Flash, as a trained professional I-"

"Over ruled," he said, pausing before pulling the needle out of Wally's arm. Wally frowned a little in his sleep.

"It may take a few days for him to wake up."

_A few hours, then. _Flash pulled Wally up into his arms, unsure of where he was going to run him to, but away from where anyone could probe at him some more. He needed to be more careful now.

The doctor sighed, apparently resigning himself to the fact that superheroes basically did whatever they wanted. He was lucky Flash had the common courtesy not to run him over right now. "Well then," the doctor said, raising his clipboard and pulling a pen out of his pocket, "I will need some information on this patient to put in the file."

Flash gave the doctor a hard stare. He felt strangely emotionless. "I'd prefer it if all and any records of this were destroyed."

The doctor looked up and replied, "And I assume you'd also prefer it if the hospital didn't sue you for not paying a medical bill?"

Point taken. He was a good doctor.

Flash shifted Wally's weight in his arms. "Make it fast," he said.

"We've approximated him to be 5 feet 1 inch and 105 pounds," he looked up to Flash for a response, who did nothing. Like he'd know off the top of his head. Wally was only an in-law he saw a couple times a year.

_And now he's-_

"How old is he?"

Flash searched his memory, trying to come up with something. When was his birthday? Hadn't it been last winter? It was almost summer now. "Twelve," he said. His age might actually been closer to thirteen, but it didn't matter.

Here the doctor paused, glancing up at Flash a last time. "Name," he said quietly, pen paused over the paper.

Flash tightened his arms around Wally. "You can just-" he started hotly, before cutting himself off. Calm. Down. The doctor needed something write down; it wasn't his fault. If anything, this was Flash's fault. He stared down at Wally, praying that he hadn't just ruined the kid's life. He'd just forced him into becoming a kid replica of one of the most dangerous people in the world. A kid replica of himself.

"You can just call him Kid Flash," Flash replied instead. He cut around the doctor and ran Wally out of the hospital.

**Step 5: Give him the talk.**

Wally woke up at 2:08 and 16 seconds the next morning. He opened his eyes, glanced at the Flash sitting at the end of his aunt and uncle's guest bed, yelped, hit his head against the headboard trying to sit up, flailed his arms, rolled over and fell out of bed, hit his hand on the nightstand on the way down, hit the wood floor hard, scrambled to get up, slipped, and was on his way back to the floor again when Flash caught him by the arms.

It was now 2:08 and 17 seconds. If he any any doubts remaining, they were erased.

_He has my speed._

Flash waited for 2:08 and 20 seconds before placing Wally back on his feet, guiding him back to lie down on the bed. His eyes were wide and he looked pale, his steps timid as he got back into bed.

_He's dizzy from going at my speed. _

"Flash?" Wally said, his voice shaky and uncertain. "Whathappened?"

_I gave you my speed. _

"WhatamIdoinghere?"

_You're a speedster. You act like one. You talk like one. _

"ThisisAuntIrisandUncleBarry'shouseright? Wherearethey?"

_You think like one._

"Your family's fine, kid," he answered. Wally blinked at him, but his brain seemed to adjust itself because he repeated, at a correct tempo, "Where are they?"

He paused, thinking. "Iris is asleep," he said. He'd left the cowl on because he thought it might be easier, but it was probably best Wally knew everything. He owed him that much. So he reached up to pull the cowl, like a hood, back from his face. "And I'm right here."

Wally's jaw dropped a little and suddenly he was kneeling and the edge of the bed closest to him.

"NowayUncleBarryyoucan'tbetheFlashyou'renotfastenoughandyou'reUncleBarryandIknowyouandI'vemettheFlashandyoucan'tbethesameperson. Didheputyouuptothis? Whathappened? ThelastthingIrememberis-isthisburstoflightand-wewereatthelaband-"

"Wally," he ordered, sitting down on the bed next to his nephew, "Slow down."

Wally obediently shut his mouth, apparently opting to say nothing at all. He stared at Uncle Barry's face with wide eyes, before glancing down to the Flash costume, and then back up to Barry's face. At then back down. Barry costume BarrycostumeBarrycostu-

"I'm the Flash," he said, and just for good measure repeated, "I'm the Flash," softer, letting Wally take it in. "That was the lab where I work. I was staying late one day and, well, you know what happened."

Wally just sat there as if he was frozen. "You're the Flash," he echoed, shock staining all of his features.

Well, now, if only there was an easy way to break the rest of things to him. He wanted to say, _Now, you're the Flash, too, _but that wouldn't exactly be accurate. Wally was just a superfast kid.

"And another thing," Barry added. Might as well get it over with, right? "…Well, I'm only telling you this because…no, wait. What I mean, is…we're family, right?"

Wally blinked at him in surprise. "Yeah?" He said, slowly for him, but at this point it was still a fairly fast compared to a normal pace. He didn't even realize it.

"So…we'll always trust each other, right?"

Wally looked dubiously down to the Flash lightening bolt again, and Barry sighed. Probably not the best choice of words. "Well, I," he stumbled to find the correct words, " um, I mean-"

"Sure, I trust you, Uncle Barry."

He stopped short, eying Wally like he had four heads. Did he really just…? Yeah, he did. Barry let a small smile creep over his face. "Kid, you're never going to make it in the super world."

"What?"

"Well, I'm going to have to make you my sidekick now, right? How do you feel about _Kid Flash?_"

**Step 6: Train**

"Flash."

His head jerks up in surprise as he hears Wonder Woman's voice through his com link. He quickly smothered the remains of the library fire and ran out to find her downtown. The JL was in San Francisco to help the city recover immediately after an earthquake.

"Wonder Woman, where are you?"

"Next to the collapsed Ferry Building. _Hurry."_

He was there a moment later, worrying about the steely tone she had used. He paused slightly to hop over a suspiciously radioactive-looking rock, glancing around to see where Wonder Woman could be. He stopped completely, surprised, to see her back towards him. That was weird. She had her hands on her hips, most likely glaring at the boy she was talking to.

"Yes, um, there's an emergency in Central…pretty. I mean city! Central City!"

_Why, Wally, why?_

"Flash told me to go get him if anything bad happ-"

"I'm here!" he interrupted loudly, before his nephew could say anything that would make WW want to murder him more. Even now, she had transferred her glare to him. "Emergency, you say? We better go!"

"_Flash_," Wonder Woman stated through clenched teeth. "Who is this?"

"I'm Kid Flash!" Wally piped up, waving his hand to get her attention again. "I'm Flash's-"

"Sidekick," he interrupted quickly, shooting Wally a look, which he didn't notice due to the presence of the other hero. "Partner-type-thing. I was going to mention him next meeting, honest. Remember what you said about training? Well, it's been at least ten years. Subjective time. Maybe. Come on, Kid, let's go!"

"You know, if you ever want to visit-"

Flash dragged Wally's arm and started running away as fast as possible. This emergency better be worth it.

**Step 7: Enjoy**

**Examples: Too many to Name**

"_Hey, Uncle Barry, what'cha writing?"_

"_Aw, nothing, kid. Hey, you want to go on a run?"_

"_You're on! Race ya!" _

* * *

Preview:

**_How to Gain a Kid Flash, Part II _**

**_Warning: Side effects may include possible Impulses_**


	30. Training Adventures

A/N: Important announcemnt: If you're looking for _How to Gain a Kid Flash Part II, _it's not here any more. After thinking it over, I decided because it wasn't a one shot and it wasn't about Wally as KF, it really didn't belong here. I plan on posting it as a seperate story shortly. So, for those of you that weren't into it that much, you're saved.

Here's the next chapter, a real one-shot this time. I don't own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: If you think about it, when are you really going to fight with a glowing floor that projects your stats?**

* * *

KID FLASH.

STATUS: FAIL.

Kid Flash glowered at the floor's status message, covering it with his hand as he stood up. Everyone else had managed to pass, at least for a second or two before Canary knocked them down again.

"Black Canary, this is the most unrealistic battleground ever!"

His teacher raised an eyebrow, backing up to give him room to recover his stance. "How so?" she asked.

Wally gave up on his position- he hated Black Canary's style, anyways, and just started pacing around. "It's a small space with no walls," he complained. He saw her open her mouth to speak, but he kept talking. "This would never happen, and it just works awful with my powers. In a real confined area, I could run off the walls. In a big, open space-" he spread his arms to indicate the giant cavernous entrance hall "-I have room to move."

Black Canary dropped her fighting stance as well, instead crossing her arms. "Adapting to your surroundings is a crucial part of being a hero, Kid."

"But it's a waste of time to train in a space that-"

"Arguing is a waste of time. Ready?"

Sighing, Kid Flash dropped back into his pose, ready for her first strike.

"No, no, that's wrong. How many times have we been over this? Raise your arms; don't balance all your weight on one foot-"

"But that's how you run!"

"Kid Flash!" she barked, narrowing her eyes and glaring at the teen. "If you haven't noticed, I haven't been using my powers, so you can do without them as well."

His mouth dropped open. "No offense, Canary, but your powers don't exactly affect your fighting the way mine do."

Her mouth had turned into a hard line. "My powers don't affect me."

"Not in the same way," Kid Flash insisted, lowering his goggles over his eyes.

Black Canary caught the movement. "Fine," she hissed. "If it's powers you want, it's powers you'll get."

"Finally!" he exclaimed. "Enough of this kung-fu crap- oh, darn it."

He ran out of the way of her sonic scream, sliding against the stone floor as he tried to change direction suddenly. No, that wouldn't work. Run in circles, Wally, he berated himself, the room is a circle. He could sense, rather the see, Black Canary watching him, the blur of him, deciding when to strike out.

_Act, never react. That's the first thing I taught you. _

He veered, hitting her right arm, but she was faster than he expected and recovered almost instantly with a kick to his head, which he had to dodge to the left. He tried to hit her knee to get her off balance, but she caught his arm and threw him over her leg. Kid Flash managed to land on his feet, stumbling, but sped away, going back to circling the perimeter of the cavern.

He tried to think of anyways he could possibly beat her, but he was drawing a blank. He lost his speed advantage if he stayed within arms' range for longer than a second, and he couldn't outfight her closely. Think, he ordered himself. How have you defeated people like this in the past?

…well, he hasn't. Not by himself. He's always had Uncle Barry, and then the team. Crap.

KF stopped directly behind her. "How would you defeat yourself?" he asked solemnly, flinching as she spun around. When he didn't receive a blow to the face, he cracked his eyes open again.

She was standing with her hands on her hips. "You're a frustrating one, you know that?"

"Sorry?" he offered. She cracked a small smile.

"But it's nice to know you still want to learn," she concluded. "In answer to your question, your best chance at defeating me would be to learn all of my tricks before you attempt to do so. Wally, I'm ready to offer a compromise. If you'll train in here with me, I'll go outside and work on running with you too. Sound fair?"

He smiled back. "Sounds excellent. And karate's not all bad. Can you teach me that think where you're on the ground on your back and you just flip up onto your feet?"

"Of course I could," she answered, "but it's completely impractical. An opponent could easily knock you down again or stab you in the middle and you'd have no way of protecting yourself."

"Yeah, but it looks cool."

She sighed. "I suppose. If you earn it by-"

Wally fist pumped in the air, not listening to the rest of what she was saying. "That's so cool, Black Canary. Best martial arts teacher ever."

And while he still preferred Uncle Barry, training with Black Canary was all right.


	31. Soul Crushing

A/N: Don't own _Young Justice. _

**Summary: Obviously, violent video games are having a huge effect on the current generation of youth.**

* * *

_R__ing….Ring…Ring…. "Hello?"_

_ "Hey, Uncle Barry. Having fun at work?"_

_ "Hello, Wally. I'm doing fine. Kind of busy. What's up?"_

" _I was just wondering if I could have a friend over."_

_ "What, now?"_

_ "Yeah. Only for an hour or so. We were just going to play some Black Ops or something. Please? Please? Please?"_

_ "Who is it?"_

_ "Oh, you know, just a friend. A person, from a place….in the world…"_

_ "Is it Robin?"_

_ "Wha…what…why do you automatically assume that? I do have other friends, you know. Other friends that I totally would invite over if not-"_

_ "So it is Robin."_

_ "Yeah, pretty much."_

_ "Sure. But only for a little while, ok? You have homework to do."_

**6 Hours Later….**

Barry Allen considered himself a pretty lucky man. He had a nice house, cool jobs, a great family. All in all, a pretty privileged existence.

"DIE! DIE, YOU INSIGNIFIGANT MORTALS!"

For the most part. Unfortunately, those shouting voices were not from the up-and-coming villains of the world, but rather-

"I WILL CRUSH THE SOULS FROM YOUR BODIES."

"Dude! How is your kill count still higher than mine?"

Simply put, he feared for the next generation.

"Hey, boys," he greeted, sliding his coat off his shoulders and onto a hanger. "I'm home. What do you want for dinner?"

"I WILL ROAST YOUR CARCASS ALIVE."

"You can't roast carcasses alive, stupid. Carcasses are already dead."

"Shut up, Dick."

"Pizza it is," Barry answered himself. He crossed the hall to the table with the phone book lying on it, looking up the number for another pizza parlor, seeing as it would be suspicious if they used the same one seven times a week.

"Meat lovers!" Wally called from down the hall.

"Dude, we get meat lovers every week. Mr. Allen, can we have an everything pizza, please?"

"You need to get this into your head. No one likes peppers or olives and especially not the two of them combined. They are vegetables. _Teenagers do not eat vegetables._"

"That's rich, coming from the human garbage disposal."

"I believe you mean, you're rich."

"You're an idiot. Hey look, I won again. And I didn't even cheat that time."

"What do you mean, that ti… I K NEW IT! I KNEW YOU WERE CHEATING! I KNEW THAT WASN'T HUMANLY POSSIBLE!"

"One, you're humanly impossible, so you can't talk, and two, STOP SHOUTING BEFORE I GO DEAF."

"WHATEVER, DICKY-"

"IF YOU CALL ME THAT ONE MORE TIME I SWEAR-"

Maybe it was time he removed the video game system from the house, Barry mused as he reached for the phone. It shouldn't be that hard to 'accidently' break it. In fact, it would probably be fun.

Yep, Barry Allen was a lucky man indeed.


End file.
